2002-01-01
Good Morning Dear Ones,
Today, I am led to continue discussing citations which reveal God as Jehovah Raah, The Lord is my Shepherd. Yesterday, I cited PS 139: 13-18 at the end of the message, which I feel compelled to repeat here. “You created every part of me; You put me together in my mother’s womb. I praise You because You are to be feared; all You do is strange and wonderful. I know it with all my heart. When my bones were being formed carefully put together in my mother’s womb, when I was growing there in secret, You knew I was there-You saw me before I was born. The days allotted to me had all been recorded in Your book. Before any of them ever began. O God, how difficult I find Your thoughts; how many of them there are! If I counted them, they would be more than grains of sand. When I awake I am still with You.” My reason for dwelling longer on this magnificent passage is that it gives us real insight into the exquisite and intimate nature of God’s place in our lives. The Psalmist is letting is see that God’s plan for him was there from before he was born, carved out in remarkable detail. Along with God’s plan for him was the Deity’s protection, provision, and guidance. All of it was in place and operational. The Psalmist speaks of his birth as an “awakening.” I am sure that he meant it was his own first conscious awareness of the road to discovering God’s light that had been laid out for him. This matters to us, because that same road to God’s light is laid out for each of us to discover in our own lives. God has not only been there for the Psalmist, He has been there since the beginning for each of us. Think of how blessed we are that this road is laid out by the One Who wants nothing more than to shepherd us along it, caring for us along the way!
Repeatedly, God refers to us as His sheep. What does this mean to us? To begin, sheep are helpless animals who need shepherding. On their own, they wander astray, often directly into the dangers all about them. With a shepherd, they find protection, guidance, sustenance, and care that they cannot provide for themselves. More citations from JN 10 shed light on what a shepherd means to his sheep, particularly on what our Good Shepherd means to us. JN 10: 17-18, “The Father loves Me because I am willing to give up My life, in order that I may receive it back again. No one takes My life away from Me. I give it up of My own free will. I have the right to give it up, and I have the right to take it back. This is why My Father has commanded Me to do.” Considering that Christ’s sheep began as His enemies, this is most extraordinary and is a huge blessing to us. Jehovah Raah is the Source of this blessing. JN 10: 27-28 gives us more on this blessing to help us understand it. “My sheep listen to My voice; I know them, and they follow Me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never die. No one can sntach them away from Me.” Peter and I learned something very interesting to us about sheep when we stopped by a sheep pasture in Upper Slaughter, a Cotswold settlement in England. We listened to sounds of their bleating and noted that their voices are unique just as human voices are. We are certain that is how a ewe or a ram are able to recognize their own lambs and a shepherd is able to recognize which sheep belong to his own flock. That, Dear Ones, is one way Jehovah Raah knows us. He also knows the content of our hearts. When we are faithful, trusting, and obedient to Him, when we don’t try to rationalize attempts to mix loyalty to the world’s values and God’s, He is eager to be our Shepherd providing us with all our needs. We can rest assured that God’s thoughts about us are always the truth and are based on an honest evaluation of what we are like. There is no fairer Judge than Jehovah Raah.
The concept of Jehovah Raah, the Lord is my Shepherd, is spoken of as early as the book of Ezekiel. EZK 34: 11-17, “I, the Sovereign Lord [Jehovah Raah], tell you that I Myself will look for My sheep and take care of them. In the same way as a shepherd takes care of his sheep that were scattered and are brought together again. I will bring them back from all the places where they were scattered on that dark, disastrous day. I will take them out of foreign countries, gather them together, and bring them back to their own land. I will lead them back to the mountain and the streams of Israel and will feed them in pleasant pastures. I will let them graze in safety in the mountain meadows and the valleys and in all the green pastures of the land of Israel. I Myself will be the Shepherd of My sheep, and I will find them a place to rest. I, Jehovah Raah, have spoken. I will look for those that are lost, bring back those that wander off, bandage those that are hurt, and heal those that are sick; but those that are fat and strong I will destroy, because I am a Shepherd Who does what is right. Now then, My flock, I, the Sovereign Lord [Jehovah Raah], tell you that I will judge each of you and separate the good from the bad, the sheep from the goats.” Just read all the examples of God’s love and compassion for His flock in this passage! There is deliverance (12), emergence from trouble (13), gathering them together (13), providing shelter (13), feeding them (14), provision of rest (15), binding their wounds (16), healing the sick (16), and righteous judgment leading to victory over evil (17). For what more could we ask?
PRAYER: O Lord, Your created us by Your wholly righteous decision with meticulous care and heartfelt compassion. You inspired the Psalmist to write about that, so we would come to know it. That was not for some self agenda, but out of the profound love that You have for us. You know that we are helpless without You, born with a propensity to find danger that leads to spiritual death. In our former stupidity, we became Your enemies. Yet, Your love for us is so great that You sacrificed Your only Son on the cross, so that we might have access to what we needed to be saved. Saving our lives was only the beginning of what You do for us as our Jehovah Raah, our Good Shepherd. You spoke of Israel being Your sheep for Ezekiel to share with us from captivity in Babylonia. That was because You yearned for their punishment to be effective, so that You could lead them back to the land You had promised them. In Christ’s time, You revealed Him as our Good Shepherd, because You knew that without You we are helpless. Once saved, we need healing, deliverance from sin, provision, protection, rest, care, to be judged fairly, and eventual permanent freedom from evil. Your Son, Jesus Christ, shepherds us for all these things. We acknowledge in humility the love You show us everyday of our lives. You deserve nothing less than our adoration, worship, trust, obedience, praise, honor and thanks, which we offer in utmost reverence. In Christ’s name, amen.
Tomorrow, Jehovah Raah urges me to share more citations that reveal the extraordinary nature of His love for each of us. I feel privileged to do this and pray that I can do so in a way which pleases Him. How can we miss the warmth of His loving embrace in our lives? Although helpless without Him, He doesn’t hold either Himself or His Son or His Spirit back from us. When we place our lives in the loving hands of Jehovah Raah, we need not worry that we will perish. Peter and I send you our love too.
Grace Be With You Always,
Lynn