The Lord Is My Shepherd

"I am the Good Shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine."
 

 

"The Good Shepherd."  Well can the sheep who know His voice attest the truthfulness and faithfulness of this endearing name and word.  Think of His love to each separate member of the flock - wandering over pathless wilds with unwearied patience and unquenchable ardour, ceasing not the pursuit until He finds it. 

Think of His love now - "I AM the Good Shepherd." Still that tender eye of watchfulness following the guilty wanderers. 

"I know my sheep."  Every individual believer - the weakest, the weariest, the faintest - claims His attention.  His loving eye follows me day by day out to the wilderness - marks out my pasture, studies my wants and trials and sorrows and perplexities - every steep ascent, every brook, every winding path, every thorny thicket.

"He goeth before and leadeth them."   It is not rough driving, but gentle guiding.  He does not take them over an unknown road.  He Himself has trodden it before.  He seems to say, "Fear not; I cannot lead you wrong; follow me in the bleak waste, the blackened wilderness, as well as by the green pastures and the still waters.  Do you ask why I have left the sunny side of the valley - carpeted with flowers and bathed in sunshine - leading you to some high mountain apart, some cheerless spot of sorrow?  Trust me.  I will lead you by paths you have not known, but they are all known to me and selected by me.  Follow me."  Leave the future to His providing.

 

"The Lord is my Shepherd, therefore can I lack nothing."  Take it as thy watchword during thy wilderness wanderings till grace be perfected in glory.  Let this be the record of thy simple faith and unwavering trust - "These are they who follow withersoever He sees meet to guide them."

--The Words of Jesus by John Ross Macduff