I Am The Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd Lays Down His Life For The Sheep
Grace Does Not Override Justice
JOHN 10:11-12
“”I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd gives His life for the sheep. But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them.
”John 10:11-12 NKJV
https://www.bible.com/114/jhn.10.11-12.nkj
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Whilst the hired hand tends the sheep for money, the shepherd does it out of love. He is the owner of his sheep and is committed to them.
Jesus is not simply doing a job which His Father gave Him to do, He is God; He and the Father are One (10:30), and is totally committed to redeeming His people, “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
John 3:16 NKJV
Again I tell you, Jesus is not simply doing a job, He is committed to saving His people, even to the point that He laid down His own life to make a way where there was no way. Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends.”
John 15:13 NKJV
No other person, past or present can save you, nor can any other god. No other religious organisation deals with the problem of sin. But while it is true that God’s grace is enough, grace does not override justice, if it did, Jesus would of not needed to pay the debt of sin.
Many say nice people will not be condemned, but those who don’t believe are condemned already. Jesus said, ““He who believes in Him is not condemned; but he who does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only begotten Son of God. And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.””
John 3:18-21 NKJV
My beloved, one cannot buy, purchase, or earn salvation. Neither will his good deeds or church attendance secure his place in paradise.
Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.”
John 14:6 NKJV
Only through relationship with Christ can you come to know Him well enough to believe and trust in Him. Only through faith can you be saved (see ROMANS 10:9-10; MATHEW 19:25-26; HEBREWS 7:25; PHILIPPIANS 3-4-11).
Faith is not a complicated process, but opens the door to positive change in one’s daily life. “Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.”
James 4:7 NKJV
Not because of who you are or what you have done, but because of who Jesus is and what He has done, sin no longer has a hold on you, nor does I’ll health, mental health, poverty, addiction, lack, or any kind of curse or demonic powers, because as a believer, you have authority over all these things through Christ, even death has lost its sting.
“But what does it say? “The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart” (that is, the word of faith which we preach): that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation. For the Scripture says, “Whoever believes on Him will not be put to shame.” For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek, for the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon Him. For “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.””
Romans 10:8-13 NKJV
If you don’t make the effort to know Christ today, it may be too late tomorrow. Jesus said, ““Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven. Many will say to Me in that day, ‘Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Your name, cast out demons in Your name, and done many wonders in Your name?’ And then I will declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from Me, you who practice lawlessness!’”
Matthew 7:21-23 NKJV
Make the effort to spend quality time with Jesus and get to know Him well, then you can be confident that He will know you on the day Jesus Christ returns.
“What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how shall He not with Him also freely give us all things? Who shall bring a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, who also makes intercession for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? As it is written: “For Your sake we are killed all day long; We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter.” Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Romans 8:31-39 NKJV
Truly I tell you, ““Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, And whose hope is the LORD. For he shall be like a tree planted by the waters, Which spreads out its roots by the river, And will not fear when heat comes; But its leaf will be green, And will not be anxious in the year of drought, Nor will cease from yielding fruit.”
Jeremiah 17:7-8 NKJV
All glory to God forever and ever! Amen.
