The Shepherd

"The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.  He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me besides quiet waters, he restores my soul.  He guides me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake." Psalm 23 

"He tends His flock like a shepherd:  He gathers the lambs in His arms and carries them close to His heart; He gently leads those that have young." Isaiah 40:11

"I am the good Shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me..." John 14

As I reflect on these verses from both the Old and New Testaments of the Bible, I am in awe!  God is our Shepherd, loving us Always, especially when Life's hardships have rejected and hurt us.   If we turn to Him, He will love and care for us always.  He will carry us and guide us.  He knows when we need him most and what we need, just like the Shepherd tending his Sheep.

God's Love and Mercy is our greatest gift.  It is the Infallible Gift, which keeps on giving ALWAYS as he remains our forever Shepherd!

I'd like to share a story:

Every once and a while, a ewe will give birth to a lamb and reject it. There are many reasons she may do this. If the lamb is returned to the ewe, the mother may even kick the poor animal away. Once a ewe rejects one of her lambs, she will never change her mind. These little lambs will hang their heads so low that it looks like something is wrong with its neck. Their spirit is broken. These lambs are called “bummer lambs.” Unless the shepherd intervenes, that lamb will die, rejected and alone. So, do you know what the shepherd does? He takes that rejected little one into his home, hand-feeds it and keep it warm by the fire. He will wrap it up with blankets and hold it to his chest so the bummer can hear his heartbeat. Once the lamb is strong enough, the shepherd will place it back in the field with the rest of the flock. But that sheep never forgets how the shepherd cared for him when his mother rejected him. When the shepherd calls for the flock, guess who runs to him first? That is right, the bummer sheep. He knows his voice intimately. It is not that the bummer lamb is loved more, it just knows intimately the one who loves it. It's not that it is loved more, it just believes it because it has experienced that love one on one. So many of us are bummer lambs, rejected and broken. But He is the good Shepherd. He cares for our every need and holds us close to His heart so we can hear His heart beat. We may be broken but we are deeply loved by the Shepherd.  

Author unknown

Prayer: Shepherd God, thank you for your forever Love and Mercy and guidance.  I pray that I may turn to you more frequently in prayer, in your Word, and in living your example of caring for others in their time of need.  I want to let you carry me when I need to be carried and am lost and rejected. 

Connie Barry

John 20

Jesus Appears to His Disciples

On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”  After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”

Jesus Appears to Thomas

Now Thomas (also known as Didymus ), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!” But he said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.” A week later his disciples were in the house again, and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!”  Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!” Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

The Purpose of John’s Gospel

Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book. But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name. John 20:19-31

John the Baptist

John the Baptist was, “filled with the Holy Ghost, even from his mother’s womb.” Luke 1:15 Jesus said, “Among them that are born of women there hath not risen a greater than John the Baptist. Matthew 3:8. John said, “Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.” John 1:29

During Easter season it is good to think of the man God allowed to be born who would identify the Messiah.

John the Baptist was a different sort of man with one purpose, to proclaim Jesus Christ as the son of God. The two men met while each was still in his mother’s womb. John leaped with joy when Mary, pregnant with Jesus, came to visit his mother. John did what few people can do as he became less as Jesus became more. He even saw his key disciples leave and attach themselves to Jesus says Henry Morris in his Days of Praise booklet.

How many of us can become humble as John the Baptist did?

Prayer: Dear Lord, Please give us some of John the Baptist’s humility. Let us put others before ourselves in this crazy world of things like, money, power, self-confidence in the wrong way and narcissism. Help us to see Jesus with wonder turning our hearts to others. Amen.

Sandra Hilsabeck

Even When...Will I Still Believe?

Why do you complain, Jacob? Why do you say, Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God”? Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.  He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak.  Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength.  They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint. Isaiah 40:27-31 (NIV)

I wait [patiently] for the Lord, my soul [expectantly] waits, and in His word do I hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than the watchmen for the morning; more than the watchmen for the morning. O Israel, hope in the Lord; for with the Lord there is lovingkindness, and with Him is abundant redemption. Psalm 130:5-7 (AMP)

Meanwhile, the moment we get tired in the waiting, God’s Spirit is right alongside helping us along. If we don’t know how or what to pray, it doesn’t matter. He does our praying in and for us, making prayer out of our wordless sighs, our aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, knows our pregnant condition, and keeps us present before God. That’s why we can be so sure that every detail in our lives of love for God is worked into something good. Romans 8:26-28  (MSG)

For several years, I've been earnestly praying for an estranged relationship. I'm often asking God, “Why?! I just don't understand!” and “How long do You want things to go on like this?!” and “Isn't there something more I could do to move things along?” It seems as if God's not answering my questions.  I've tried to wait patiently for His timing, but it's SO hard!

This situation is truly putting my faith to the test. Even when things don't get better...even when I don't get answers...will I still believe? Unfortunately, when I worry and fret over this estranged relationship, I'm showing that I don't trust God to handle everything. It's a struggle not to put what I want ahead of what He wants.  But ultimately, my relationship with Him needs to come first...I must place my complete trust in who He is.

God sent me a hopeful, encouraging reminder in church recently. As we sang one of my favorites, “Everlasting God” (based on the scripture from Isaiah above), I remembered another time He spoke to me through that song. This time, God reassured me, “I've got this. Trust me. I haven't forgotten you. I've heard your prayers.” Oh, how my soul needed to hear that. I now feel strengthened for the journey ahead. 

I'm so thankful that God sometimes helps us in the waiting by sending us little--and sometimes big--reminders that He's heard our prayers. And He reassures us that, even when we don't see or understand how, He's still working for our good. So if I keep my eyes and ears open, I just might find the encouragement, strength and guidance I so much need. 

Prayer: God of Hope, forgive us for letting our faith waver when life's disappointing and doesn't go the way we want. During trying times, please give us the strength we need to hold tightly to hope. And thank you for the many ways you've been faithful throughout our lives. May we remember this to give us encouragement for today. Amen.

Sharon Irvin

The World God Created

You shall not pollute the land in which you live, for blood pollutes the land, and no atonement can be made for the land for the blood that is shed in it, except by the blood of the one who shed it. You shall not defile the land in which you live, in the midst of which I dwell, for I the Lord dwell in the midst of the people of Israel.” Numbers 35:33-34 ESV

The Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it. Genesis 2:15 ESV

Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness. And let them have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens and over the livestock and over all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” Genesis 1:26 ESV

“If you come across a bird's nest in any tree or on the ground, with young ones or eggs and the mother sitting on the young or on the eggs, you shall not take the mother with the young. Deuteronomy 22:6 ESV

And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the livestock according to their kinds, and everything that creeps on the ground according to its kind. And God saw that it was good. Genesis 1:25 ESV

Earth Day was yesterday (I chose to post something about Easter instead), but here are some verses about the earth and some photos of God’s glorious world!

Donna Gustafson

Mark 16

Jesus Has Risen

When the Sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices so that they might go to anoint Jesus’ body. Very early on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, they were on their way to the tomb and they asked each other, “Who will roll the stone away from the entrance of the tomb?”

But when they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had been rolled away. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man dressed in a white robe sitting on the right side, and they were alarmed.

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.  But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”

Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.

When Jesus rose early on the first day of the week, he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, out of whom he had driven seven demons. She went and told those who had been with him and who were mourning and weeping. When they heard that Jesus was alive and that she had seen him, they did not believe it.

Afterward Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country. These returned and reported it to the rest; but they did not believe them either.

Later Jesus appeared to the Eleven as they were eating; he rebuked them for their lack of faith and their stubborn refusal to believe those who had seen him after he had risen.

He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. And these signs will accompany those who believe: In my name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not hurt them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.”

After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God. Then the disciples went out and preached everywhere, and the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it. Mark 16: 1-20

Good Friday

Jesus Sentenced to Be Crucified

Then Pilate took Jesus and had him flogged. The soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head. They clothed him in a purple robe and went up to him again and again, saying, “Hail, king of the Jews!” And they slapped him in the face.

Once more Pilate came out and said to the Jews gathered there, “Look, I am bringing him out to you to let you know that I find no basis for a charge against him.” When Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe, Pilate said to them, “Here is the man!”

As soon as the chief priests and their officials saw him, they shouted, “Crucify! Crucify!”

But Pilate answered, “You take him and crucify him. As for me, I find no basis for a charge against him.”

The Jewish leaders insisted, “We have a law, and according to that law he must die, because he claimed to be the Son of God.”

When Pilate heard this, he was even more afraid, and he went back inside the palace. “Where do you come from?” he asked Jesus, but Jesus gave him no answer. “Do you refuse to speak to me?” Pilate said. “Don’t you realize I have power either to free you or to crucify you?”

Jesus answered, “You would have no power over me if it were not given to you from above. Therefore the one who handed me over to you is guilty of a greater sin.”

From then on, Pilate tried to set Jesus free, but the Jewish leaders kept shouting, “If you let this man go, you are no friend of Caesar. Anyone who claims to be a king opposes Caesar.”

When Pilate heard this, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judge’s seat at a place known as the Stone Pavement (which in Aramaic is Gabbatha).  It was the day of Preparation of the Passover; it was about noon.

“Here is your king,” Pilate said to the Jews.

But they shouted, “Take him away! Take him away! Crucify him!”

“Shall I crucify your king?” Pilate asked.

“We have no king but Caesar,” the chief priests answered.

Finally Pilate handed him over to them to be crucified.

The Crucifixion of Jesus

So the soldiers took charge of Jesus. Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha). There they crucified him, and with him two others—one on each side and Jesus in the middle.

Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: jesus of nazareth, the king of the jews.  Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek. The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, “Do not write ‘The King of the Jews,’ but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews.”

Pilate answered, “What I have written, I have written.”

When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining. This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.

“Let’s not tear it,” they said to one another. “Let’s decide by lot who will get it.”

This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled that said,

“They divided my clothes among them

    and cast lots for my garment.”

So this is what the soldiers did.

Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, “Woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.

The Death of Jesus

Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. John 19: 1-30 New International Version (NIV)