God’s people are not cattle to be driven, they are sheep
to be led. If we have no heart for the
flock of God, and no understanding for the shepherd’s ways, then we need to
repent or resign! We must ask God to
grant us His very compassion to care for His lambs. While we will not attain to the standard He
has set, the Lord our Shepherd shows us the model we are to emulate—or, even
better, incarnate as Jesus indwells us and can work through us as we yield to
Him.
Spurgeon had this to say about the Lord, our Shepherd:
“He shall
gather the lambs with his arm.” (Isaiah 40:11 )
Our good Shepherd has in his flock a variety of
experiences, some are strong in the Lord, and others are weak in faith, but he
is impartial in his care for all his sheep, and the weakest lamb is as dear to
him as the most advanced of the flock. Lambs
are wont to lag behind, prone to wander, and apt to grow weary, but from all
the danger of these infirmities the Shepherd protects them with his arm of
power. He finds new-born souls, like
young lambs, ready to perish—he nourishes them till life becomes vigorous; he
finds weak minds ready to faint and die—he consoles them and renews their
strength. All the little ones he
gathers, for it is not the will of our heavenly Father that one of them should
perish. What a quick eye he must have to
see them all! What a tender heart to
care for them all! What a far- reaching
and potent arm, to gather them all! In
his lifetime on earth he was a great gatherer of the weaker sort, and now that
he dwells in heaven, his loving heart yearns towards the meek and contrite, the
timid and feeble, the fearful and fainting here below. [1]
Such
is the nature of sheep. Such is the duty
of shepherds. May my heart be given to
them and for them—the heart of the Shepherd.
[1] Spurgeon,
C. H. (2006). Morning and evening: Daily
readings (Complete and unabridged; New modern edition.). Peabody , MA
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