Christ the Good Shepherd

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John 10:11-15

I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd gives his life for the sheep.…

The shepherd who can always go to bed regularly at night, and who is able to say, "I do not have much trouble with my flock," is not the man to be envied. He coolly says, "a few lambs died last winter; we must expect that kind of thing. It is true that some sheep died of starvation; but if the meadows failed, I could not help that." That is the kind of shepherd who deserves to be eaten by the next wolf; but the man who is able to say with Jacob, "By night the frost devoured me, and by day the heat," is the true shepherd. He is most irregular as to his rest; the only thing regular about him is his labour and his disappointment, and yet faith makes him a happy man. When you grow very weak as a pastor, and your charge utterly overcomes you, do not repine at such weakness, for then you will be at your full strength; but when you are strong as a pastor, and say, "I think that to be a minister is an easy matter," you may depend upon it that you are weak.

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