Thought for the Day - Wednesday 21 April 2021

John 10:28-30 (New Living Translation)   I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one can snatch them away from me, for my Father has given them to me, and he is more powerful than anyone else. No one can snatch them from the Father’s hand. The Father and I are one.”     This passage from the book of John is well known and is where Jesus tells the parable of the Good Shepherd.  You will be familiar with the story of how the sheep recognise and respond to the voice of the shepherd that they know and also how the shepherd knows each of his sheep by name.  When he leads his sheep from their enclosure to pasture, they follow him because they know him and his voice.  If a stranger tries to do the same in order to steal the sheep, they will scatter and run away because they do not know the stranger and are not familiar with his voice.  Jesus continues the parable by saying that the good shepherd will even lay down his life for his sheep if they are attacked by a wild animal while a hired hand is more likely to run away and abandon the sheep he is supposed to be looking after.   Jesus tells us that he is the good shepherd and that his sheep know him and that he knows his sheep.  He takes it a step further when he explains that the Father knows him and that he knows the Father.  At the beginning of the chapter, we learn that it is the Pharisees he is addressing.  The Pharisees were an ancient sect of the Jewish church who believed in carefully observing religious laws and saw themselves as being better than others as a result.   To some extent, they were conflicted because some of them believed Jesus was possessed by a demon while others argued ‘how could a man possessed open the eyes of the blind?’   Later in the chapter, we hear of how the Jews came out and asked Jesus if he was the Messiah.  The Lord responded by saying he had told them, but they did not believe.  They were not his sheep because if they were, they would recognise his voice and trust in what he tells them.  These were men that witnessed the miraculous things Jesus accomplished and yet, refused to believe who he said he was.   Jesus tells us that if we listen to him, follow him and trust in him, we will have eternal life with him.  He doesn’t promise it will be easy, but if we hold fast to him, we will be sure of receiving our reward.   Prayer Heavenly Father, thank you for the beautiful weather we are enjoying just now and we thank you for the innovative ways that technology provides us with that enable us to tell others about you, and we pray that if someone reads this story of the good shepherd, even for the first time, it will prompt them to find out more. Amen. ĺ