Last week we had our Vacation Bible School at our congregation and I taught the 3rd and 4th Grade Bible class throughout the week. As I studied for the lesson on “God is our Provider” I was thinking about the Scriptures I would use and I thought of Psalm 23:1, “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” This led me to do some research on shepherds during Bible times and I found some interesting things about shepherds that enhanced my understanding of some Bible verses.
“The Lord is my shepherd...” Shepherds were usually the youngest boy of the family who would not receive an inheritance. Most of the times, shepherds were young, unmarried boys. Shepherds had a 24 hour job and never at any time left the flock. They were with their sheep at all times. In the morning, oftentimes carrying a sack of food with them, they would lead the sheep to pastures of grass for food and places of water for drink. They were constantly mindful of where the sheep were and were always on the lookout to make sure none strayed. If a single sheep strayed, they would search and search until they found it. At the end of the day, the shepherd would lead the sheep home and would count the sheep one more time to make sure they had not missed any sheep that had strayed that day. This reminds me of Matthew 18:12, “If any man has a hundred sheep, and one of them has gone astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and search for the one that is straying?”
A shepherd also provided protection for the sheep. A person once visited Israel and found a sheep pen. He noticed that the pen was missing a gate and questioned the shepherd about it. The shepherd replied that he was the gate for the sheep each night. He slept in that opening to keep the sheep in and the wild animals and thieves out. Jesus says, “I tell you the truth, I am the gate for the sheep. All who ever came before Me were thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through Me will be saved.” John 10:7-9
To protect the sheep, the shepherd was watchful for wild animals and robbers who wanted to steal the sheep. A shepherd was prepared to fight off these threats and even die in doing so. Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” John 10:11.
Just as the Bible compares Jesus as a shepherd, the Bible compares us to sheep. “Know that the Lord Himself is God; It is He who made us and not we ourselves; We are His people and the sheep of His pasture.” Psalm 100:3. Sheep do not know danger and were not created with claws or teeth or anything else to intimidate or scare off prey. They are defenseless in an attack and are therefore dependent on their shepherd for safety. In the same way, we cannot save ourselves. Just as the sheep are dependent on their shepherd, we are completely dependent on Jesus for salvation. In Jesus alone is our only hope for eternal salvation and we must be completely dependent on Him to lead us. Jesus also said, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me." John 14:6
In studying about Jesus our shepherd, it helps to more fully comprehend the love, dedication, and sacrifice Jesus shows toward us being our Good Shepherd. It is up to us to decide if we will accept Jesus as our shepherd and the salvation He offers.
That was a really good read. I had heard some of that before, but not all. I thought the part about the gate (and how the scripture is worded) was really interesting. Thanks for sharing that, Morgan.
I really liked the part about the boy watching the sheep 24 hours. Knowing that Jesus is always watching us gives the feeling of true inner peace. Thank you for the thoughts! They were great!
I am very excited to see what God decides to do with the book. The possibility of helping someone who may be going through difficult times really excites me. He does amazing things, if we all would just let Him!
This is a really good post, Morgan! I like how the shepherd is the gate. The last time JR taught the HS class we went into detail about the responsibility of shepherds and then compared that to Jesus. It was really interesting and I enjoyed reading your post! I like the part about the shepherd being the gate and that no one got through him without him knowing. It reminds me of John 10:1,9, “...he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber.... I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he will be saved....” Really good thoughts! I appreciate you writing this up for us to be encouraged and strengthened by it.
“God is greatly to be feared in the assembly of the saints, and to be held in reverence by all those around Him.” Psalm 89:7
Reverence is defined by Vines as “to put to shame, to feel respect for, to show deference to, caution” The word “reverence” has also been translated from the Greek word “Phobeo” where we get the word “phobia”. Therefore reverence also means “to fear”. In Esther 3:5 reverence means “worship”. In Hebrews 12:28 reverence means “sense of shame, modesty”. In Ephesians 5:33 reverence means “to fear, to treat with reverential obedience”. Also in Hebrews 12:9 reverence means “to respect”. Our preacher recently had some sermons on “reverence”. He preached it in a gospel meeting this past spring and it had a positive effect upon that congregation. After the gospel meeting, they had a men’s business meeting and decided that the men would wear ties when waiting on the Lord’s table to show their reverence for God. When our preacher preached the series at our congregation, I was so encouraged by it that I wanted to share some of my notes and some things I’ve been thinking about in regard to the subject of “reverence”.
In our lives as Christians, our reverence defines our relationship with God. In reverence we realize that Christianity is about God not about us. When we make Christianity about us, we will not have the proper reverence to God that we ought. When we lack proper reverence, we bring God down to our level to make God small like us. The Bible tells us in 1 Timothy 4:7, “Exercise yourself toward godliness.” The word “godliness” in this verse is translated to mean “reverence”. So God tells us that we need to exercise toward reverence. We all understand that exercise involves work on our part. Therefore, we need to be working toward reverence. We need to recognize the awesomeness of God and see Him on His throne as Isaiah did in Isaiah 6:1-5. We need to study His Word and we need to see the need for sacrifice. To do this, we must learn self-control.
Reverence will affect every area in our life. You know, a lot of times we like to make a priority list in our life. We will say our priorities are as follows in our life: 1. God 2. Family 3. Work 4. Friends 5. Interests, hobbies etc... Yet when we properly reverence God, He will be first in everything. He will be first in our relationships, in our interactions with family. He will be first when we are at work. Also, He will be first and affect how we treat our friends. Our reverence to God will affect every area of our life.
Our reverence (or lack of it) will reflect in our worship to God. Do we treat His Word as holy in the way we worship? Or do we think the Bible is a matter of our own opinion? “Therefore since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear.” Hebrews 12:28 The word “serve” in that verse means “to worship”. God demands that we worship Him acceptably with reverence and godly fear. If we have a proper reverence to God, we will not try to twist the scriptures to make it fit our own agenda. Rather, we will view His Word as holy and follow the divine instruction. Nadab and Abihu come to mind when I think of an example of someone who did not have regard for God’s commandments in worship. Leviticus 10:1-2 “Then Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, each took a censer and put fire in it, put incense on it, and offered profane fire before the Lord, which He had not commanded them. So fire went out from the Lord and devoured them, and they died before the Lord.” The Lord then spoke (vs 3), “By those who come near Me I must be regarded as holy; And before all the people I must be glorified.” The commandments of God (The Bible) is not open for our own interpretation to do what we want.
Do we show reverence to God in what we wear to worship Him? Reverence means that I will never be casual in what I wear to worship. The word casual means “cascading” which is “falling or tumbling”. Casual means fallen standards. Our culture we live in today is very casual. The standards are falling and tumbling down but do we show the same attitude in our dress to worship God? What we wear needs to indicate that we are giving God our best we have to give. Even Joseph changed and shaved to see Pharaoh. Will we give God any less? We should never be casual in our conduct or dress when we worship God. We should do our own personal best when comes to worshipping God. Our preacher had pointed out that he knew of a man who only wore overalls but when it came to worshipping God, he had a pair of overalls he only wore to services. They were his best pair. I think we can see that this individual truly had a heart to want to give God his best. When we go to a wedding or funeral or celebration of somebody, in respect for those people, we will clean up and put on clothing that is more than our casual clothing. Will we not do as much for God?
In studying about reverence, it helps our focus in this life in respect to God. It will affect every aspect of our life so that we will be pleasing to Him. This should be our ultimate goal. “I will worship towards thy holy temple, and praise thy name for thy lovingkindness and thy truth: for thou hast magnified thy word above all thy name.” Psalm 138:2
Thank you for sharing these thoughts, Morgan! The preacher where I worship did a lesson along these thoughts yesterday morning. Reverance towards God is always good to think about and work towards. :) I hope you are doing well!
Thanks for the great thoughts Morgan! It's been a bit too long, I was starting to miss these! I hope that everything is doing well! Will you guys be at the Whitsitt's Volleyball Day?
What you said reminds me of things Gary Henry has said before. Reverence for God should show up in every aspect of our lives, no matter how small! In my worship, schoolwork, social life, my choice of words when I make a stupid mistake on the volleyball court. It's really a whole-life transformation!
Believe it or not, we actually went to the store, recorded it, and edited the commercial together in one afternoon! :) We're really happy with how it turned out!
Morgan, this is the most awsome article I have seen in years. So good it should be put in an Christian booklet or something similar to it. It has done so much to enhance my spiritual self. Thank you!
