Tending the Flock

John 21:17

He said, "Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you." Jesus said, "Then feed my sheep".

Peter, believing his love for Jesus was obvious to Jesus, became frustrated.  So Peter challenged Jesus, saying, "Lord, you know everything. You know that I love you."  Jesus' response to Peter's challenge was essentially, "Prove it." 

Jesus challenges each of us as well to feed His sheep.  He calls us to provide appropriate nourishment to the young lambs and encouragement to the mature members of the flock.  He calls us to go after any that leave the flock until they are found and brought back under the protection of the Good Shepherd.

Jesus calls on each of us who love Him to go out and do the work that He was doing.  He tended to all of the needs of the people, all the way to the Cross, because of His love for His Father.  Jesus expects us to take up His work, to take up our cross, because of our love for Him.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for sending Your Son, Jesus, to tend to our every need, especially our need to be freed from the sin that separates us from You.  In response to Your loving kindness, mercy and grace, we surrender our lives to You.  We ask that You show us the cross that You have prepared for us.  We pray, Lord, that You instruct us in the way that we should go.  May Your Holy Spirit guide us and strengthen us for the journey.  Father, we pray that You release Your power through us so that others may discover the Way of the Cross.  We ask all these things in the name of the one who went to the Cross and shed His blood for us, Jesus Christ.

Even When Our Courage Fails Us

John 21:17

A third time he asked him, "Simon son of John, do you love me?"

We can be certain that the sincerity of our love for Jesus will be tested.  We will be examined by Jesus to see if we love Him more than any thing offered by this earth.  We will be measured to see if our love for Jesus qualifies us to feed His sheep.

Jesus asked Peter three times, "Do you love me?"  Peter was not hard of hearing.  The Greek translation reveals that Jesus was referring to a different level of love with each question.  The first question asked of Peter was if he loved Jesus as friends might love one another - eros.  The second question Jesus asked Peter was if he loved Jesus like he might love a brother or sister - philos.  The third time Jesus got to the heart of the matter.  He asked Peter if he had an all-consuming love for His Lord - agape.

As we grow as Christians, Jesus will challenge us until we reach an all-consuming love for Him.  All the along the way, the Holy Spirit will guide us, strengthen us and build us up as we work our way through our own personal journey of sanctification.  Through our love for Christ, we will learn to feed His sheep even when our courage fails us.  

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank you for the unearned, unconditional love that You have given us, so that we may have a love gift to return to You.  We exalt Your name for willingly sending Your only begotten Son to die on the Cross to cleanse us of our sins, so that we may be deemed acceptable to present our love gift to You.  May Your grace be with us so that we can experience the fullness of Your perfect love and respond with an all-consuming love for You and Your Son, Jesus.  We pray, Lord, that we will become strong enough and bold enough to feed Your sheep even when we feel to weak too care for them.  We ask all these things in the name of the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ.

Using the Weak and The Foolish for His Glory

1 Kings 17:16

The bowl of flour was not exhausted nor did the jar of oil become empty, according to the word of the LORD which He spoke through Elijah.

Elijah, in accordance with God's directive, went to the widow in Zarephath and requested that she make him some bread to eat.  She told Elijah that she could not feed him because she only had enough flour and oil to feed her and her son one more meal.  She then told Elijah they would die because their food supply would be exhausted.  Elijah told the woman if she made his meal first that her supply would never be exhausted.  And so it was by the word of the Lord.

When we feel the call of the Lord to fulfill a service or a charity, we should never concern ourselves with what is in our cupboard.  The Lord will always supply what we need to fulfill His work.  And when the work is done, our cupboard will overflow just as the widow's did.

It is God's way and it is to His glory to make use of and put honor upon the weak and foolish things of the world.  It makes perfect sense that He would want to use us to do His good work.  We certainly fit the bill of the weak and foolish.  May we stand ready to proclaim His glory through the work that we do for Him.

Prayer,

Heavenly Father, we thank You for calling us to be of service to Your kingdom.  We rejoice in knowing that You will equip us to do whatever You call us to do.  We exalt You as You bless us, knowing we will be a blessing to others.  We pray that we will never question our ability or our resources as You raise us up as instruments of Your good work.  We pray that all that we do will be praise and glory to You, to Your Son Jesus, and to the Holy Spirit.  We ask all these things in the matchless name of Jesus.

The Fullness of Abiding in the Most High Place

Psalm 91:1

He that dwells in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.

Loving faith on our part will always be met by faithful love, protection and provision on God's part.  His covering of us is much greater than we can imagine.  If we are abiding in Him, there is no limit to His shadow that is over us.  He protects us at all times from natural and supernatural enemies.  He makes our homes secure.  He is our refuge in every storm.

There is a special nuance in this passage, however.  The blessings spoken of here in this passage can be greater for those believers who live in close fellowship with God.  Every believer may look toward the inner sanctuary and the mercy-seat, yet all do not dwell in the most holy place.  All believers surely run to the mercy seat in time of need and may enjoy occasional moments of communion with the Father, but the fullness of these most high blessings are for those who habitually abide in the shadow of Almighty God. Those who stand in continuous communion with God set themselves up to become possessors of rare and special benefits.  Let us seek the grace to be constant refugees in the fortress of Almighty God so that we cannot miss the fullness of His shadow.

Prayer

Heavenly Father, thank You for the shadow of protection and provision that You place over us when we surrender our lives to You.  We bless the name of Jesus who has made it possible for us to come to Your mercy seat.  We pray, Lord, that Your Holy Spirit will guide us and strengthen us as we seek to abide under Your shadow.  As we come to Your mercy seat in the name of Our Redeemer, may we learn to encourage others to trust in Him also.  We ask all these things in His Holy and Righteous Name.

Overcoming the World

John 16:31

Jesus answered them, “Do you now believe?

After all the time that Jesus spent with the apostles, He had to take a lengthy amount of time explaining to them who He was.  When He completed His explanation, He posed a question to them, "Do you now believe?"

Somehow as we pray, read the Word, worship and serve God, we manage to lose our sense of who Almighty God really is and the certainty of all the promises that He has given us through His Son, Jesus Christ.  We turn toward the world for answers when our all-sufficient Lord has provided us with a Wonderful Counselor who can supply our every need.

When Jesus Christ left the earth, did He leave us to our own wiles?  No He did not.  He promised that that His Holy Spirit would be with us and would comfort and guide us.  To believe otherwise is to have a complete lack of faith.  To believe otherwise is to deny what Jesus said He came to earth to do.  "These things I have spoken to you, so that in Me you may have peace. In the world you have tribulation, but take courage; I have overcome the world." 

Prayer

Heavenly Father, we thank You for the comfort and guidance that You provide through Your Holy Spirit.  We bless the name of Jesus who came to earth so that we may have peace and we may overcome the tribulations of the world.  We pray, Father, that Your Holy Spirit will help us to dig deep into our relationship with You.  May we dig so deep that we never again turn to the world for counsel without having gone to You first.  Help us, Lord, to believe for more than we believe is possible through our own efforts.  Teach us how to wait on You for Your good and perfect timing in all things.  We pray these things in the name of Jesus Christ, our precious Savior.

Faithful to Meet Every Need

Psalm 56:11

In God I have put my trust, I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me?

It is amazing how often we struggle, wondering how our particular situation is going to get resolved.  How little faith we have in Almighty God through whom all things are possible.  But what may be even more amazing is how we have no faith that Almighty God is interested in the smallest needs in our lives when His Word proclaims that He knows the count of every hair on our heads.

Through the continuous and sometimes onerous trials that we have passed through in life, we should have learned to be silent and patient when our trials are light.  Yet we seem to become frustrated by the small stuff and lose patience.  More importantly we lose confidence in Almighty God who bottles all of our tears and observes them with tender love and concern.

May we all come full circle just as Paul did.  Through our trials, may we all praise God knowing that He is faithful to meet our every need.

Prayer,

Heavenly Father, we thank You for Your faithful promises to meet our every need.  We praise You for giving us sufficient grace to get through every trial.  We pray, Lord, that You will grant us the faith to trust in You for everything in our lives.  We ask that Your Holy Spirit teach us to come to You boldly with what seems impossible and also come to You confidently with the smallest things that are troubling us.  May Your grace and power in our lives never be diminished because of our lack of understanding.  We pray all these things in the name of Jesus, the Good Shepherd.