Thursday, February 24, 2011

Give it Away, Give it Away, Give it Away Now

Sacrifice. I think it's fair to say, thats a word that most of us don't like to hear. According to Webster's dictionary sacrifice means, "to give up something of value for something else."

The first reason why I believe Jesus is the Good Shepherd is because of His Sacrifice (vss. 11-13). What kind of sacrifice did Jesus make? Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice by giving up His life for us. In John 15:13 we learn that Jesus laid His life down for us. The word lay in the Greek means "to carry no longer." When Jesus died on the Cross He gave up His life, He carried it no longer and began to carry our life.

As I stated in the first blog post in this series a Shepherd is so attached to His sheep that he is willing to die for them. We read in John 10:12-13 that when the wolf comes that the hired hand (opposite of the Good Shepherd) flees and leaves the sheep as easy prey for the wolf. I'm sure as Jesus was saying these words images of Jeremiah 23:1-6 and Ezekiel 34:1-16 was going through the listeners mind and reinforcing what Jesus was saying. We know that in these two sections of Scripture that the Shepherds here were destroying and scattering the sheep and tending to their own personal needs.

Jesus is the Good Shepherd because He is willing to die for us and protect us from the enemy, even if it means giving up something of value for something else.

May the Lord bless you and keep you.

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