One Shepherd, Many Sheep

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For today, I want to direct your attention to shepherds and sheep. A shepherd is "[o]ne who herds, guards, and tends sheep” or “[o]ne who cares for and guides a group of people, as a minister or teacher”. The word herd is "[a] group of cattle or other domestic animals of a single kind kept together for a specific purpose" or “[a] large number of people; a crowd”.  As you can see from the definitions, a sheep is to follow the directions of his shepherd and the shepherd is to take care of the sheep making sure that they all stay safely together.

In today's time, many pastor's (or ministers) are called shepherds because they have their "flock" (who is the congregation), but the problem with this is that a lot of the times, we start to follow the man instead of gospel that the man preaches. There is but one shepherd of man and that is God. Psalm 23 starts with "(1) The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not want. (2) He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside the still waters..." (NKJV).  So who is our shepherd? The Lord! On his best day, a pastor is but a sheep himself following an awesome God. He just happens to be someone trying to get you to recognize that we are suppose to be following His Word.

When you have sheep following other sheep, then there is a problem. Unless that sheep is following the directions of The Shepherd, he could lead you down a path where the enemy can overtake you.  The Shepherd cares for all of the sheep. "(12) What do you think? If a man owns a hundred sheep, and one of them wanders away, will he not leave the ninety-nine on the hills and go to look for the one that wandered off? (13) And if he finds it, I tell you the truth, he is happier about that one sheep than about the ninety-nine that did not wander off. (14)In the same way your Father in heaven is not willing that any of these little ones should be lost." (Matthew 18:10-15).   No one man can do this no matter how charismatic he is.

I am not saying that a pastor is useless.  If they are not poisoning the congregation with their own agenda and they are preaching what the Bible says, then they are a great asset for the God's Kingdom.  The question is do you take more queues from another sheep rather than from the Good Shepherd? If your pastor acts in a manner contrary from the Word of God, are you bold enough to call them on it or do you continue to blindly follow the person behind the pulpit?  Who are you really following today?

Be blessed and have a good one!

Antoine E. Hall

"It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect." - 2 Samuel 22:33