I heard a story about a woman who was visiting her friend in old Jerusalem. One day while sitting at an outdoor cafe, out of nowhere they heard screams. It obviously startled the two and they thought it was a woman, but then in an alleyway was a man with a long shepherd’s crook angrily poking and prodding at his herd of sheep. The sheep were screaming and trampling over each other in fear as the man forced them down the road. The woman said to her friend “Wow, I’ve never heard a sheep scream like that before. I didn’t know shepherds handled their sheep in that way.” The friend then said back to her, “Oh that’s not a shepherd, that’s the butcher.”
Allow me to remind you today, friend, that the butcher is not the Shepherd.
Jesus, our Good Shepherd, doesn’t abuse His sheep but lays His own life down for us. He knows each of us by name and carries us home, close to His heart. We are deeply loved and cared for by Him. So He tells us, “Fear not, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the Kingdom.” (Luke 12:32)
I pray that God would help us all to replace every lie about Him in our minds with the truth of who He says He is, and may we all grow deeper in our love for Him as He does so.
“My sheep hear My voice, and I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of My hand. My Father, who has given them to Me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:27-30)
– Katrina
Gospel Assurance 