Read John 10:1-10
“…And the sheep follow him, for they know his voice. Yet they will by no means follow a stranger, but will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.”—John 10:4-5
Of all the animals Jesus could compare us to, it’s interesting He called us sheep. Sheep are dirty, defenseless, and directionless creatures. The shepherd must lead sheep to food, water, and safety. Sheep tend to wander and go astray so they depend on the shepherd to bring them back to the fold. With all those dependencies and faults, sheep need a mechanism to recognize the shepherd under every circumstance—the shepherd’s voice.
If we are indeed what Jesus called us, sheep, it’s essential to know our Shepherd’s voice. The only way to know His voice from all others is by relationship and repetition:
–If we have a relationship with the Shepherd, we know His voice because we claim Him as our Shepherd, and He claims us as His sheep. We are not listening to nor obeying other voices; only the voice of our Shepherd.
–We know His voice through repetition. We listen to His voice time and again until we know it beyond any doubt as the voice of our Shepherd. We train ourselves to hear His voice by studying His Word and dialoging with Him.
Still, there are times we suffer from “hearing problems” when we hear the Shepherd’s voice but choose not to obey and we find ourselves lost. Or as often happens, we go seeking other grazing grounds that leave us vulnerable to attack by predators. That’s when we human sheep need to put out a call for help—prayer.
Because He is the Good Shepherd, He always listens and responds to our call. That is what is so great about our Shepherd, even when we don’t listen to His voice, He knows and always listens for our voices. And He promises to always come to the rescue.
Lesson to Remember: The voice we recognize best is the voice we listen to most. Whose voice do we listen to hear?
“Therefore whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.”—Matthew 7:24-25
