Text- John 10:14 – "I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me”
Yesterday, we began a discussion on what it really means to be Christ’s sheep. We were able to establish from scriptures that a sheep is a believer. A sheep believes in the words and in the works of Christ.
Today, we will be considering another mark of a true sheep. In our text, we read the very words of Jesus; he unequivocally stated that “my sheep know me”. Another thing about Christ’s sheep is that they know Him.
See what the writer of Romans said about the knowledge of God in Romans 1:21 – “Yes, they knew about him all right, but they wouldn’t admit it or worship him or even thank him for all his daily care. And after a while they began to think up silly ideas of what God was like and what he wanted them to do. The result was that their foolish minds became dark and confused”
This portion of scripture implies that knowing true things about God has never been a hard task for man. Though his knowledge of God may be limited, man has always and will continue to know true things about God. The problem however, is the willingness to honor and treasure those things we know about Him.
Knowing God not only means that we know a lot of things about God, but that we willingly acknowledge those things in a deep rational sense… treasuring what we know about Him, being hungry for more of Him, not as an academic pursuit, or mere religious interest, but as a person who can be known.
Without doubts, every true sheep who believes in Jesus Christ wants to know God in a deeply personal and intimate sense. Certainly, every true believer can know God this way, but not all believers approach God with the mindset of knowing Him.
How do I mean? Most professed believers often go to God looking for rewards… as it were, constantly expecting or asking Him for things. While it is not wrong to go to God with our cares and burdens (1 Peter 5:7), that is not the primary concern of a true sheep.
A true sheep, who is interested in really knowing God in a deeply personal and intimate sense, prays another kind of prayer constantly with the whole of his heart; the kind of prayer that we hear Moses pray in Exodus 33:13 – “Now therefore, I pray, if I have found grace in Your sight, show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight.”
If you ask me, this is one of the greatest prayers in all of Scripture. It’s more or less like the prayer that Paul prayed for the Ephesian Church asking that God will give them the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.
“Jeremiah 29:13 says, “You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart”. You see beloved, knowing God is all about seeking God; and that, with all of our heart. You can’t claim to be a true sheep of Christ, except you are genuinely seeking Him with all your heart, because that is where the knowledge of God starts from.
A true sheep of Christ is someone who continuously says to the Lord, “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.” (Psalm 62:1-2).
Are you a true sheep?
PRAYERS
1. Lord, I desire to know you more! Show me now Your way, that I may know You and that I may find grace in Your sight.
2. Lord, I ask for your enabling grace to truly come to terms with, and acknowledge the truth of who You are.