(With your Bible in your hand)
CHRIST THE GOOD SHEPHERD
“I am the Good Shepherd, and know My sheep, and am known of Mine.” — Joh_10:14.[PS1] [PS2]
GOD DOES not mean merely benevolent and kind, but genuine and true. It is contrasted with the robber and the hireling. Up to a certain point the latter may do his work creditably. He will not desert the flock for trifling considerations; he will earn his pay! But when it comes to the supreme test of sacrificing his life, the hireling breaks down and leaves his flock to the peril of the wild beast. There are such shepherds who have taken up the pastoral office as a livelihood.
How different is our Lord—the Good Shepherd—who gave His life for the sheep. Why did He love us so? It will always be a mystery! He seeks those who belong to His fold but have wandered off into the dark paths of sin. Jesus goes after the one which is lost until He finds it! That is the way of the Chief Shepherd.
Bible rendering brings out the intimate knowledge of Christ of His flock: “I know Mine own, and Mine own know Me; even as the Father knows Me, and I know the Father.” None knoweth the Father save the son, and none the Son save the Father. But in this same intimacy and certainty the Lord Jesus knows each of us. He knows our downsitting and our uprising; our motives, sometimes misunderstood; the anxieties which overcast our joys; our fears and hopes. He assuages, as no stranger, can, our heart’s bitterness. It is good to be known thus, for we need enter into no laboured explanation of ourselves.
Christ seeks those who do not belong to a fold (Joh_10:16[PS3] ). Probably there will always be many folds, for by the constitution of their minds men are ever disposed to view Truth from different angles. Some do not see this, and hold that if we do not believe just as they do, we have no right to assume that we belong to the flock. They forget that there may be many folds, yet one flock. Whatever may be your special fold, the one great question to answer is: Do you hear and obey the Shepherd’s voice? If so, you certainly belong to the one flock, and no one shall snatch you out of the Shepherd’s hand (Joh_10:27-28 [PS4] ).
PRAYER
O Lamb of God! Who art in the midst of the Throne, but wilt be our Good Shepherd and tread the rough pathway of this world with each trembling heart. May we be abundantly satisfied with Thy provision and follow in Thy footsteps. AMEN.
Evening
“He began to wash the disciples’ feet.” — Joh_13:5[PS5]
The Lord Jesus loves his people so much, that every day he is still doing for them much that is analogous to washing their soiled feet. Their poorest actions he accepts; their deepest sorrow he feels; their slenderest wish he hears, and their every transgression he forgives. He is still their servant as well as their Friend and Master. He not only performs majestic deeds for them, as wearing the mitre on his brow, and the precious jewels glittering on his breastplate, and standing up to plead for them, but humbly, patiently, he yet goes about among his people with the basin and the towel. He does this when he puts away from us day by day our constant infirmities and sins. Last night, when you bowed the knee, you mournfully confessed that much of your conduct was not worthy of your profession; and even tonight, you must mourn afresh that you have fallen again into the selfsame folly and sin from which special grace delivered you long ago; and yet Jesus will have great patience with you; he will hear your confession of sin; he will say, “I will, be thou clean”; he will again apply the blood of sprinkling, and speak peace to your conscience, and remove every spot. It is a great act of eternal love when Christ once for all absolves the sinner, and puts him into the family of God; but what condescending patience there is when the Saviour with much long-suffering bears the oft recurring follies of his wayward disciple; day by day, and hour by hour, washing away the multiplied transgressions of his erring but yet beloved child! To dry up a flood of rebellion is something marvellous, but to endure the constant dropping of repeated offences-to bear with a perpetual trying of patience, this is divine indeed! While we find comfort and peace in our Lord’s daily cleansing, its legitimate influence upon us will be to increase our watchfulness and quicken our desire for holiness. Is it so?
Morning
“The trees of the Lord are full of sap.” — Psa_104:16[PS6] [PS7]
Without sap the tree cannot flourish or even exist. Vitality is essential to a Christian. There must be life -a vital principle infused into us by God the Holy Ghost, or we cannot be trees of the Lord. The mere name of being a Christian is but a dead thing, we must be filled with the spirit of divine life. This life is mysterious. We do not understand the circulation of the sap, by what force it rises, and by what power it descends again. So the life within us is a sacred mystery. Regeneration is wrought by the Holy Ghost entering into man and becoming man’s life; and this divine life in a believer afterwards feeds upon the flesh and blood of Christ and is thus sustained by divine food, but whence it cometh and whither it goeth who shall explain to us? What a secret thing the sap is! The roots go searching through the soil with their little spongioles, but we cannot see them suck out the various gases or transmute the mineral into the vegetable; this work is done down in the dark. Our root is Christ Jesus, and our life is hidden in him; this is the secret of the Lord. The radix of the Christian life is as secret as the life itself. How permanently active is the sap in the cedar! In the Christian the divine life is always full of energy-not always in fruit-bearing, but in inward operations. The believer’s graces are not every one of them in constant motion? but his life never ceases to palpitate within. He is not always working for God, but his heart is always living upon him. As the sap manifests itself in producing the foliage and fruit of the tree, so with a truly healthy Christian, his grace is externally manifested in his walk and conversation. If you talk with him, he cannot help speaking about Jesus. If you notice his actions you will see that he has been with Jesus. He has so much sap within, that it must fill his conduct and conversation with life.
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[PS1]Joh 10:14 I am the Good Shepherd, and I know [without any doubt those who are] My own and My own know Me [and have a deep, personal relationship with Me]–
[PS2]Joh 10:15 even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father–and I lay down My [very own] life [sacrificing it] for the benefit of the sheep.
[PS3]Joh 10:16 I have other sheep [beside these] that are not of this fold. I must bring those also, and they will listen to My voice and pay attention to My call, and they will become one flock with one Shepherd. [Eze_34:23; Eph_2:13-18]
[PS4]Joh 10:27 The sheep that are My own hear My voice and listen to Me; I know them, and they follow Me.
[PS5]Joh 13:5 Then He poured water into the basin and began washing the disciples’ feet and wiping them with the towel which was tied around His waist.
[PS6]Psa 104:16 The trees of the LORD drink their fill, The cedars of Lebanon which He has planted,
[PS7]Psa 104:17 Where the birds make their nests; As for the stork, the fir trees are her house.
