Shepherd

I am the gate;

whoever enters through me will be saved.

They will come in and go out,

and find pasture.

John 10.9

Josh Moody:

To enter through him—to believe in him—is the way to be saved; and to carry on in a healthy and growing relationship with God, you “come in and go out” through Jesus and “find pasture.” You never move beyond Jesus, or grow out of Jesus, but he gets bigger and more impressive (from your perspective). As the trials you face become more challenging, so your view of him grows by comparison and you go in and out through him, constantly feeding on his word and growing in your faith in him.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy;

 I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.

10.10

This text....is truly profound. Jesus’ goal for his followers—those who enter through him, “the gate”—is that they would have life, but not just to “be alive” forever in some extended existence of the mediocre or moderately fulfilling. No, he has come to give us life “to the full” or “abundantly” (ESV). The word for “abundantly” has almost the sense of “excessively.” It is as if Jesus is saying that the lives of his sheep will not just be middling; they will be extravagantly, expensively, expansively full. Jesus does not promise us that our lives now will be pain-free. No one who follows this good shepherd who gives up his life for the sheep can expect an easy life. But everyone who does follow him is promised a full life. Better to live fully, even at great cost, than never truly to live at all.

I am the good shepherd.

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.

10.11

Mark out some space, and take some time, to let the profound truth of Jesus as your good shepherd sink into your heart. It calls you to dependence on Jesus, to listening to his voice, and to following him. It speaks to your need: you are a sheep (a silly, aimless, directionless, wandering sheep). Even the best of us is still a mere sheep. But such humbling realization, which none of us in our honest moments are very far from, is met with a gracious vision of Jesus as this good shepherd, who lays down his life for the sheep.

All shepherds—all under-shepherds/pastors, and all those who shepherd a family—take on this mantle to lay down our lives for the sheep too. That is a hard calling, and it is only made possible by this greater realization that we too are sheep, and we too have a good shepherd to follow; and all (sheep and under-shepherds) who trust in him find him faithful, true, protecting, saving, and suffering for our sake.