Prayer
Briefly prepare your heart in silence, and ask the Holy Spirit to awaken your sense of anticipation that God is about to speak to you through His Word. Then, before you read, I invite you to pray this simple prayer from 1 Samuel 3:9:
Speak, LORD.
for Your servant is listening.
Amen.
Reading
John 10 is most famous for Jesus’ description of Himself as the Good Shepherd. As we progress through the chapter today and next week, we’ll focus on different aspects of our relationship with Jesus that emerge from the sheep-shepherd metaphor.
As I reflected on verse 1-6 today, I was struck by the importance of learning to know the Shepherd’s voice. Speaking of the shepherd, Jesus said:
“(H)is sheep follow him because they know his voice.”
If we are to be disciples of Jesus who follow Him faithfully, the journey begins with knowing His voice.
In Jesus’ day (and still today in the Middle East) shepherds did not drive their sheep. They quite literally called the sheep by name to follow them to good grazing and fresh water. This seems impossible to us, until we realise that the shepherds spent their lives with their sheep. The shepherd’s voice would have been one of the first sounds a lamb heard, because he would have helped its mother to lamb. Every day of its life, the lamb would have heard the shepherd calling the flock. It would have learned by its mother’s example to follow that voice. It would have discovered right from the start that, by following that voice, it remained within the protection of the flock and found fresh water and good grazing. Because the shepherd slept out in the fields with them and protected them from harm, the sheep will have associated the shepherd’s voice with safety. No wonder they followed its sound.
As disciples, Jesus is constantly speaking to us inwardly by the Holy Spirit, but we need to learn to listen more carefully. And there are no shortcuts to learning the sound of His voice.
If I want to hear Jesus’ voice more clearly, I need to spend more intentional time in the Bible with the aims of (a) discovering more about Jesus’ character and about His expressed will for me, and (b) of discerning what He is saying to me for today through the written Word. I ought to spend more time in prayerful listening to Jesus, bringing my life to Him in prayer, asking for His direction, and then listening for His reply with the ears of my heart and with my conscience. I ought to stay in close fellowship with the “flock” to which I belong (e.g. my home group or circle of friends from my local church) so that I can learn from their example how to follow Him better.
How much do you actually want to hear what Jesus has to say to you? Will you put in the effort required to learn to hear His voice more clearly?
Contemplation
Please take time to ponder what Jesus has commanded us. Turn these declarations over and over in your mind. Keep them in mind throughout the day and live in step with Your King, Jesus.
As a disciple of Jesus Christ:
- I will listen carefully for the voice of my Shepherd.
- When I hear His voice, I will follow.
Lord Jesus, please open my ears to hear Your voice, and give me the grace to follow You. Amen.
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