Category: Goodness, Beauty & Truth

The Good Shepherd

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I want you to consider something. God came and spoke to the people of Israel from the mountain, and they were terrified of Him. They basically told God to stop talking to them. So what did He have to do? He had to speak to them through Moses. He had to give them the Law. The Law pointed to Him, but it wasn’t the plan to have a list of instructions for them (or us) to follow. The plan was that they have a relationship with Him, and that He would lead us as a Shepherd leads His flock.

He came in the flesh in the person of Jesus Christ and finally showed us Who He is and how much we mean to Him. He said, “I am the Good Shepherd. My sheep know my voice and they follow Me. The Good Shepherd lays down His life for His sheep. No one takes my life from Me, but I lay it down willingly. And if I have the authority to lay it down, I have the authority to take it up again.” (John 10:11-18)

Do you see? It is not about what we do, it is about what He has done. He died and is alive, and we have been given life through Him and with Him, that we might be led by his Spirit to verdant pastures and still waters. (Sounds like Paradise, doesn’t it?) If we have the Good Shepherd to lead us, why would we fence ourselves in with a set of laws and instructions that was only meant to reveal Him to us when He came?

The Law given through Moses was a sheepfold. (Gal 3:24)

There is no need for a sheepfold when the Good Shepherd is in our midst. (Romans 10:4)

The sheepfold helped to keep us relatively safe, but we were still susceptible to thieves and wolves. We needed a Shepherd to come and watch over us, and to save us and lead us to a new life outside the sheepfold into the wide expanse of FREEDOM!” (Romans 8:2-3, 2 Cor. 3:17)

I pray you can receive this in the Spirit of Whom it has been given. I want to share the beauty that God is sharing with me. I have been in religious circles all my life. I have been in the Protestant world, the Jewish/Messianic world, and even dipped my toes in Catholicism and Eastern Orthodox streams. Some of the doctrines and traditions are so beautiful within these circles. Yet, they are not HIM! And He is MORE BEAUTIFUL, MORE LOVELY than all of them combined!

By the Grace of God, He kept taking everything away from me that I was using as a replacement for His presence and His voice, and only when I felt boxed in, did I finally surrender and say, “Okay, then, what is it I am supposed to be doing?”

“There is nothing that you can do that I haven’t already done. Follow Me. Be with Me. Sit here at my feet and learn from Me; I am humble of heart; Take my yoke, for My yoke is easy and My burden is light, and you will find rest for your soul.” See how great is the Father’s love is?

And so I pray, “I will not move unless You move. I will follow You.”

Letting Go

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She picked up the stone she had been carrying in her pocket. It was smooth from rubbing with her fingers and cool to the touch. It was her favorite stone, the only stone she had left.

“Can I have it, little one?”

“Why, I don’t know that I could part with it. I love it so, you see. I found it a long time ago and I don’t remember life without it. What would I have in its place?”

“Ah, but you see, that is precisely why I want it. Perhaps you are meant to know what loss of a thing feels like. I will tell you this, If you give me the rock, I’ll give you more of me. And I’ll still have the rock, but I’m very good at keeping things safe.”

“Well…maybe.”

And then, looking into his deep brown eyes, she could see the love he had for her, how he wanted her trust in even this seemingly small thing, so she opened her hand and offered the last thing in the world she had to call her own.

And she immediately felt light, and free–like the world was so full of possibility. Like she had so many options for how to be in this world than she thought possible while holding on to that one thing she had cherished for so long.

She was starting from scratch; rediscovering herself and what life could possibly be in this rockless world. And instead of feeling dread over her loss, she just felt peace, a little apprehensive, but sure that she’d made the right decision, and that maybe when she was ready he would give back her rock and it would fit with her new life that she was setting out to discover.

But for now, she had given everything over to his care. Her faith was simple and small, and she felt good.

He held out his hand, and she clasped it tightly. They would be going on this adventure together. She would never be alone again.

You Are Lovable

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From the fear that I am unlovable…
Deliver me, Jesus.

The idea that a person is unlovable goes back to the feeling that in order to be lovable we have to do and say the right things. Though it may be difficult sometimes for other people to love us, for God it is effortless. This is the beauty of the Gospel. God loves you; He loves me; He loves everyone. If you doubt that, you have only to look to the One who laid His life down for you on the cross–Jesus Christ, the Son of God who is fully God and fully man. He is the real, tangible proof that you are indeed lovable.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him might not perish but might have eternal life. (John 3:16)

 

God Became Man

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“Man’s maker was made man, that He, Ruler of the stars, might nurse at His mother’s breast; that the Bread might hunger, the Fountain thirst, the Light sleep, the Way be tired on its journey; that the Truth might be accused of false witness, the Teacher be beaten with whips, the Foundation be suspended on wood; that Strength might grow weak; that the Healer might be wounded; that Life might die.”

~St. Augustine

Be Still

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“Be still and know that I am God!” (Ps. 46:10a)

People often think that “be still” in this verse means, “be quiet,” but it actually means “sink down, relax, let drop, or let go” (H7503).

On the night Christ was betrayed, He prayed in the Garden of Gethsemane (Olive Pressing):

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup away from me; still, not my will but yours be done… He was in such agony and he prayed so fervently that his sweat became like drops of blood falling on the ground. ” (Luke 22:42,44)

In His humanness, Christ struggled with letting go of His own will, so much so that His sweat became as drops of blood. He humbled Himself, and acquiesced to His Father’s will even to the point of death.

La Pietà by Michelangelo is a masterpiece revealing the beauty of the human form and evoking emotion from the onlooker. For me, it embodies the idea of letting go or surrender. In dying, Christ shows His complete surrender to the will of His Father. Yes, He died, but three days later, He rose from the dead, conquering death and the grave. In letting go, in being humble, He is raised up to the highest place of honor in His Father’s Kingdom.

Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will exalt you. James 4:10

Many people struggle with wanting their own way. We think that if we can control our lives, we can avoid pain, discomfort, annoyance, and other kinds of suffering. But this simply is not true. We can’t control what happens to us. We can only control how we confront what happens to us.

For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it. (Luke 9:24)

We cannot escape suffering. What we can do is let go of our need to try to control and put our trust in a God Who is good, Who loves us, and Who desires the best for us. We can surrender to His will because He is faithful, He is trustworthy.

For if we have grown into union with him through a death like his, we shall also be united with him in the resurrection. (Romans 6:5)

Even though we are destined to die, He has the power to raise us up again. We have hope that the death we die, whether physically or even psychologically, it is not the end; resurrection is coming.

Beauty Even in Small Things

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“The Lord was specific even about small details. Around the hem of the priests’ garments there were to be embroidered pomegranates of purple, blue, and red, interspersed with golden bells: “a golden bell and a pomegranate, a golden bell and a pomegranate, round about on the skirts of the robe” (Exod. 28:34). Even though the children of Israel were refugees, wandering in the desert and living in tents, God commanded Moses to use extravagant resources to make worship beautiful. All of it portable, too, so that an impoverished people could carry that beauty with them, as they crossed and recrossed the desert over the course of four decades.
Beauty must mean something. God must know something about how beauty works on the human heart. He must have made us that way.”

~Frederica Matthewes-Green