HEAL - God's Heart for Healing in JohnSample

The GOOD Shepherd

Of all the animals God could have chosen to represent His children, He chose sheep. There’s no animal much dumber than a sheep! (Go ahead and research sheep yourself.) We can safely assume, then, that if He refers to us as sheep, He knew we could do little on our own!  He wants us to rely solely on Him. He explains to us in this chapter that He is our Good Shepherd - not just our shepherd, but our GOOD Shepherd. If God calls something good, we should take Him at His word. Jesus said, “I came to give you life, and not just “regular” life, but ABUNDANT life! Who doesn’t want ABUNDANT life as the Creator defines it?

It’s also important to realize that if we don’t allow Him to be our Good Shepherd, then apparently we’re subjecting ourselves to our enemy. The choice is 1) a Good Shepherd who will lay down His life for us, OR 2) the enemy, also known as the one who comes to STEAL, KILL, and DESTROY! Luckily, we don’t have to be very smart to make the choice to follow the Good Shepherd.  

So, sometimes when we’re going through a difficult time, we may just need to lighten up on ourselves a little bit. We can’t figure everything out ourselves, and He never asked us to. Recognize that He has made Himself available to us, because we absolutely need Him, and we can rely solely on Him as our Good Shepherd to meet all our needs.  

QUESTIONS:

1. How am I trying to handle all my issues on my own?
2. How can I better fall in love with and recognize the voice of my Good Shepherd?
3. Do I think I know more than my Good Shepherd about what I really need?