3 January 2011

Psalm 68; Gen. 28:10-22; Heb. 11:13-22; John 10:7-17

It seems that Jacob was in the middle of nowhere, alone and running from his brother Esau who was breathing murderous threats towards him. In this lonely place he sees that he is definitely not alone, God is here, in fact this seems to be God’s dwelling place, the portal if you will between heaven and earth. The Lord renews the covenant between Himself and this family here and Jacob promises that if God is faithful to him, providing food and clothing, He will indeed be His God and in return He will give a tenth of all that he has. Little could he have known at this time what his life would look like and yet God was faithful to this deceiver all the days of his life. There was much pain and sorrow and conflict ahead but in all these things the Lord blessed him and watched over him.

Jesus’ job description is simple and straightforward, he is the good shepherd. We have a picture of what it means to be a good shepherd in Psalm 23 and in Ezekiel’s prophecy we see that the Lord promises to come and become the great shepherd to His people because those who are appointed to the job are bad shepherds, self-aggrandizing, preferring the fat sheep to the lean sheep. Here, Jesus says that indeed those who would be shepherds are actually not shepherds at all, only acting like hired men whose primary concern is not the sheep but themselves. I wonder if we have not created this professional class among the shepherds of our day, mere mercenaries on a ladder of success, chasing from job to job. Jesus is indeed the great shepherd and we are but under-shepherds. We do not replace Him but our role is to attach others to Him and to care for those souls as He would, becoming His hands and feet and that is a role for the entire body to assume, not just the senior pastor.

This better country of which the writer speaks is the one towards which our lives are to be pointed. Faith in the unseen but longed for country is what impelled these men listed here to believe that they could bless their descendants. The Lord had promised to bless them and they believed in a God who was faithful to His promises because He had been faithful to them in their lives. How do we bless our children? These men believed that indeed their descendants would be numberless even though they could easily lay hands on and name their children. They believed all of God’s promises and that they could speak blessing over their children because of Him. They believed in His real presence with them and that presence meant blessing.

O kingdoms of the earth, sing to God;
sing praises to the Lord,
to him who rides in the heavens, the ancient heavens;
behold, he sends out his voice, his mighty voice.
Ascribe power to God,
whose majesty is over Israel,
and whose power is in the skies.
Awesome is God from his sanctuary;
the God of Israel—he is the one who gives power and strength to his people.
Blessed be God!