A New Year For His Voice
By Sharon Reidenbach
From carols, programs, parties, to children waving
their new list for
Santa. Voices vibrated our very being this past
holiday.
And during this clamoring noise did we hear our
names called that
didn’t have a need or a demand attached to it? Or
to tell us we were
valued and loved? Maybe we felt like a stick
figure at a large party
– lost?
Christians too, can get caught up in the excitable
moments of
celebration followed with moments of irritability.
The jumbled chaos
of Jingle Bells had overshadowed or drowned out
our Shepherd’s voice.
Whether its holidays or the demands of living,
Christ promised: “To
him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hears his
voice, and he calls
his own sheep by name and he leads them out. And
when he brings out
his own sheep, he goes before them; and the sheep
follow him, for they
know his voice” (John 10: 3-4).
When a ewe and her lamb get separated the baaing
and bawling never
stops. But when the lamb recognizes its mother’s
voice it scampers
across the field right to her! This is the picture
Christ is draws for
us. He intimately knows each of us from among the
mingling crowds.
We are beginning a new year. Perhaps this season
you gave your heart
to Christ for the first time, or perhaps you’ve
renewed your
commitment to him. Through schedules, challenges
or disappointments
Christ says emphatically, “I am the good shepherd;
and I know My
sheep, [I know where they are and what’s hurting
them}, and am known
by My own. [Because we are His, we know His voice,
too.]. . . . . .
And I lay down My life for the sheep” (John10:
14-15). Wow! Can we
think of anyone else who would do this for us?
The world wants to rob our peace. The world wants
us frazzled. The
world wants us to march to its drummer. But Christ
warned us of this
false hireling. The hireling wants to lead we
sheep for his own
profit. His voice condemns: “Aren’t good enough;
you’ll never improve;
you failed again; you can’t help that person, look
at yourself.” And
at the first sign of trouble our Accuser abandons
the sheep.
Let’s make this year a time we listen to the voice
of the One who
knows us.
First, He promises to go before us through all the
rumpled up, twisted
avenues we have to travel. Second, we are never
too far, too deep, or
too overwhelmed for God to find us: we know each
other! Third, Jesus
proved His love for His lowly sheep with His life.
And when He did, He
called out each of our names from the cross!
Fourth, accepting His
gift of the cross, we have eternal life and no
one, not even the
hireling, can snatch us from Christ’s loving
Father.
May this New Year we tune out the Accuser, who
pulls us down, and
listen to the Voice of our good Shepherd, who
knows us, and calls us
by name.
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