HIS SHEEP never perish.

When Jesus was in Jerusalem for the Feast of Dedication (Hanukkah), The Jews gathered around him, saying, “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, tell us plainly” (John 10:24). The phrase translated “gathered around Him” means “encircled like wolves.”

Jesus answered, “I did tell you, but you do not believe” (John 10:25a). I have a friend named Billy who is new to following Christ. Billy recently purchased a car for his estranged “ex.” A few days ago he told me, “She hasn’t shown interest in Jesus yet, but she is watching me. She can see the new goodness and aliveness in me.”

Actions often out-speak words, don’t they? Jesus said something similar: “The miracles I do in my Father’s name speak for me” (John 10:25b). The miracles Jesus implemented contained messages about aliveness. Every miracle cried out “God cares about every aspect of your aliveness—social, emotional, mental, physical, spiritual.”

He went on to say “…but you do not believe because you are not my sheep. My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:26-27). One of the I Am’s of Jesus in the book of John is “I Am The Life.” Jesus’ sheep listen to the voice of Life and follow in the footsteps of Life. I wonder how many times in an average day I hear His voice? How about you?

“I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one can snatch them out of my hand” (John 10:28). Jesus again brings the conversation back to the subject of life. “My sheep are protected from the life-destroyer. I speak life and give life, and those who follow Me are becoming more alive day by day.” The Lord’s enemies understood all too well that only God can trump death and give eternal life. By making such statements, Jesus was claiming to be God. And then He removed all doubt by saying: “I and the Father are one.” (John 10:30).

In other words, unquenchable, unstoppable aliveness is available from the Father through the Son.

Life Challenge: Think of one way you are (mentally, emotionally, socially, spiritually) more alive than you were a month ago. Thank the Good Shepherd.

JESUS LIVED a “you-first” life.

Jesus said, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep” (John 10:11).

What does “lays down his life” mean? The Message paraphrase says, “…puts the sheep before himself, sacrifices himself if necessary.” In other words, He let go of His aliveness in order to make more aliveness available to us. This in contrast to the thief (Satan) and to most of the religious leaders (hired hands) of Christ’s day. “The hired hand …sees the wolf coming, he abandons the sheep and runs away. Then the wolf attacks the flock and scatters it. The man runs away because he…cares nothing for the sheep” (John 10:12-13).

You would think being a sheep would be a fairly simple job description, but there are complications, aren’t there? Besides being mentally deficient, sheep face challenges from thieves, cowardly hired hands, and hungry wolves. When Jesus was arrested, the gospel of Mark says that the sheep (His followers) quickly scattered (Mark 14:27). Sheep become confused and vulnerable when they scatter. Have you ever been part of a “scattered” flock? A scattered fellowship? A scattered family?

The Good Shepherd said, “I lay down my life for the sheep” (John 10:15b). That’s quite a contrast to the hired hand who “cares nothing for the sheep.” Through the years of our lives, you and I will encounter both kinds of leaders—from selfless to selfish. Selfish leaders, from pimps to politicians, use people. Good leaders love people, and lay down their lives for people.

“The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life…of my own accord” (John 10:17a-18a). What does Jesus mean here? What does God love about Jesus being willing to die—to be disconnected from God’s rich aliveness—in our place? God the Father is a lay-down-My-Son-God. He is a lay-down-My-life-God. When He sees His only begotten Son living His likeness on this planet, He loves it.

This kind of talk caused another split in the Jewish ranks (John 10:19a msg).

Of course it did! Jesus’ words always have and always will split people apart. Sheep from goats. Believers from scoffers. Wheat from tares. Light from dark. Life from death. One group of those who heard Him that day said He was “demon-possessed and raving mad” (John 10:19). Another group said the opposite, that no demon-possessed man could speak with such wisdom and open the eyes of a blind man.

When it came to Jesus, there was no middle ground that day.

There never is. 

Life Question: Can you name one good shepherd you’ve known, other than Jesus? Tell someone about that lay-down-your-life person today.

JESUS CAME TO HELP you and me experience deep, unending life.

The gospel of John brims over with signs of life. You might call John 10:10, near the very center of John’s testimony, the spinal cord of the book: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (John 10:10).

We really have no concept of how much Satan, the thief, hates aliveness. He has come to pickpocket it. He has come to steal away and stamp out life wherever he sees it. One way a person defeats an enemy is to destroy something or someone the enemy prizes. God prizes people and abundant aliveness, so Satan fights against people and resists every increase of aliveness. That battle surfaced in a synagogue when Jesus healed a man on the Sabbath.

Then Jesus said to them, “I ask you, which is lawful on the Sabbath: to do good or to do evil, to save life or to destroy it?” (Luke 6:9). See that? Doing good is saving life. Doing evil is destroying life.

What is true in the New Testament of the Bible is also true in the Old Testament. In the book of Genesis we read: “Don’t you see, you planned evil against me but God used those same plans for my good, as you see all around you right now—life for many people” (Genesis 50:20, msg). Joseph’s dream was to be a leader who gave life and saved lives. As the years passed, he grew into that dream and it became an actuality.

Jesus came to do good, to give us deep, unending aliveness. “I have come that they may have life….” There are dimensions of good and evil. Good is light, evil is darkness. Good is truth, evil is deception. Good is pure, evil is corrupt. Good is life, evil is death. The second half of John 10:10 speaks of good, while the first half speaks of evil. All through the Bible, good is anything that helps people connect with God’s aliveness. In contrast, evil is anything that disconnects people from God’s aliveness.

            Addressing the subject of life itself, Jesus spoke of those who “… and have it to the full.” What is this full life that Jesus spoke of? The New Living Testament calls it “a rich and satisfying life.” The Living Bible calls it “life in all its fullness.” The King James translation calls it “abundant life.” The Message paraphrase calls it “more and better life than they ever dreamed of.” Plentiful, rich, vital, lavish life.

Interested?

Life Question: Set your mind to do one good thing today—one thing that helps someone become a bit more alive.

IF I HAVE JESUS…I have all that I need.

Jesus had just exposed a crowd of religious know-it-alls. They had imagined themselves to be wise and clear-sighted, but Jesus called them blind. And then on top of that, He called them thieves, too! “Very truly I tell you…anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber” (John 10:1).

In stark contrast to the sheep-thieves, Jesus claimed to be the good shepherd (vs 2) and the sheep-gate. (vs 3) In my office at home, I have a photograph of a large rock-wall sheep corral, built many decades ago by shepherds in the wilderness near Owyhee Reservoir in eastern Oregon. The rock wall is about 150 yards in circumference and four feet high. Its gate is just a six-foot wide opening in the rock wall. Shepherds would put the sheep in the corral and lie down in the opening. To any wolves or sheep-nappers hoping to sneak and grab a lamb, the shepherd was saying, “Over my dead body.”

The Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep, and His sheep (including the healed man spoken of in chapter 9) “… follow him because they know his voice” (John 10:4b). Mid-eastern shepherds would lead their flocks from the front, calling out to individual sheep by name. I like that. The government knows me by my Social Security number, but the Good Shepherd knows me by name.

It is one thing for a sheep to hear the shepherd’s voice, and another for the sheep to understand His direction. Jesus told this simple story, but they had no idea what he was talking about. So he tried again. “I am the gate: whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture” (John 10:6-7a, 9).

I love how the text says that Jesus “tried again.” He has tried again (and again and again) with me a thousand times over. He is persistently merciful, and He keeps me safe and sound and well-nourished. My thinking jumps from here to Psalm 23, which speaks of still waters and green pastures. The Shepherd offers His sheep provision, protection, direction, correction and restoration. He is everything I need. I shall not be in want.

Baaa… baaa…blessing.

Life Question: What do you think Jesus meant by “come in and go out and find pasture”? (Does it relate to the next verse, John 10:10?)

ADMIT YOUR NEED for more exposure to truth.

I learned about cameras in the third grade. I built a crude camera by putting a pinhole in a small cardboard box and capturing an inverted picture on photographic film. Even in those early days, I remember being intrigued by the concept of light and exposure. In John chapter 9, the former blind man was first exposed to the light in Jesus—and then exposed to the darkness of spiritual pride in the religious leaders of his day.

Jesus heard that they had thrown him out, and went and found him. He asked him, “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” The man said, “Point him out to me, sir, so that I can believe in him” (John 9:35-36, msg). The new visionary looked for something beyond blind faith. He asked for more insight, more evidence, more revelation, more truth.

When I walked away from God as a young man, my life became empty and dark. I wanted to believe in God again, but no longer felt it was logical or feasible. Finally, I asked God for a specific sign of His reality, and at that very point Jesus began to reintroduce Himself to me.

I have a friend, Stephen, who has an effective ministry in Christian apologetics. Stephen was a staunch agnostic until he took up a friend on her challenge to spend a year researching reasons for faith or lack of faith. As time went on, Stephen discovered many reasons to believe—in nature, in scripture, and all around him. He’d just needed to stop and look. He’d needed someone to point out a few of those reasons to him.

Jesus said, “You’re looking right at him. Don’t you recognize my voice?” (John 9:37, msg). This man was blind when Jesus sent him off to the pool where he received glorious eyesight. He had heard Jesus’ voice but, up until that point, he hadn’t actually seen Him. In fact, he’d been trying to believe in a person he had never seen. When Jesus pointed to Himself, the man became an eye-witness to eternal aliveness in a human body. (9:38)

This is a beautiful picture of what some people call “progressive revelation.” If we acknowledge our blindness and crave better insight, God will give us more revelation. On the other hand, if we pretend to have 20/20 eyesight already, what sight we have will progressively fail. “Those who have made a great pretense of seeing will be exposed as blind” (John 9:39b, msg).

Life Question: In what area would you say, “I am partially blind…but I’d like to see more”?

  UNTIL I SEE JESUS…for who He is, every day on my calendar is a blind date.

A second time they summoned the man who had been blind (John 9:24a). The former blind man had a court date but thank God, it wasn’t a blind date. They made him swear on the Old Testament to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but—what they wanted him to say! Obviously, they had made up their minds already, and a closed mind is a blind mind. “Give glory to God,” they said. “We know this man is a sinner” (John 9:24b). The man with restored sight truly did give glory to God. Men and women who are fully alive in Christ just naturally bring Him glory.

He replied, “Whether he is a sinner or not, I don’t know. One thing I do know. I was blind but now I see!” (John 9:24-25). Don’t you love that answer? “Hey guys, just think about this. I CAN SEE! I’ve been blind from birth, living in a world of total darkness. But now I see the world in living color. Can’t you see that? Maybe you’re the ones who are blind!”

I don’t know where this man got his backbone, but it wasn’t from his parents. And when the leaders tried to pull his religious puppet strings as they had done to his mom and dad, they found that the puppet strings had been cut and wouldn’t work. Jesus Himself had set the man free, and that made these prideful bullies very, very angry.

“You illegitimate bastard, you!” they shouted. “Are you trying to teach us?” And they threw him out (John 9:34, tlb). The once-blind man, largely untaught, was teachable. The religionists, highly taught, were pretty much unteachable. One huge key to becoming more alive is being teachable life-long learner. Sometimes I’m not as teachable as I should be, but I don’t see it until I look back. My hindsight is better than my insight.

How teachable are you today?

Life Challenge: Rank your current teachability level between 0, unteachable, and 10, totally teachable. Add two to your score and use that for your goal today.

IF YOU REALLY SEE GOD, you’ll see Him helping and healing people.

Have you ever seen a no-see-um? No-see-ums are a nasty tribe of biting midges so tiny as to be almost invisible. When I read what the New Testament says about the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, the Pharisees and Sadducees, I think of them as Phari-no-sees and Sad-you-no-sees. The One sent from God was right in front of them, but they could no-see-Him.

Some of the Pharisees said, “Obviously, this man [Jesus] can’t be from God. He doesn’t keep the Sabbath” (John 9:16a, msg). Jesus wouldn’t stay in their six-day-box because God never takes a day off from helping people. Others countered, “How can a bad man do miraculous, God-revealing things like this?” There was a split in their ranks (John 9:16b, msg).

A split in their ranks? I would call it a split between those with vision and those with no vision. What was a dark eclipse for some was more like breaking daylight for others.

Some were beginning to see Jesus as doing God-revealing things. In other words, they saw Him doing things that revealed a life-giving, people-helping God. They saw God-in-Jesus working overtime to make people physically, psychologically, socially, spiritually, presently and eternally more alive.

Ready to pounce on any misstatement, the religious leaders asked the post-blind man who he thought Jesus was. The man replied simply, “He is a prophet” (John 9:17b). Some people may see Jesus as a prophet, a Higher Power, or an inspired teacher before they see Him as God’s Son.

The newly healed blind man may not have been sure who Jesus was at that point, but he was certainly aware of God’s goodness—and knew that what Jesus had done for him had vastly increased his quality of life. For the moment, that was okay. It’s all right to be partly right about Jesus—if you’re open to finding out more.

Flustered, the religionists tried to pull the puppet strings of the seeing man’s parents, and succeeded. Instead of defending their son or his healer, the parents threw their boy under the bus and cowardly replied, “Ask him.” It makes me want to check my own back for a yellow streak. Fear of man can blind one to God-revealing things happening right in front of our faces.

Life Challenge: Ask God to help you do at least one life-giving, people-helping, God-revealing thing today.

EYE-OPENERS change life.

My mom was almost blind when she passed away. An eye doctor diagnosed early glaucoma and macular degeneration in my own eyes ten years ago. The doctor’s good care has helped me hold steady visually since diagnosis, but I will tell you this: Eyesight is incredibly precious.

In today’s Scripture we read: Having said this, he spit on the ground, made some mud with the saliva, and put it on the man’s eyes (John 9:6). Having said this—that He was the light of the world—Jesus prepares to act in line with His claim and give the blind man new, exciting exposure to light.

“Go,” he told him, “wash in the Pool of Siloam.” …So the man went and washed, and came home seeing (John 9:7). Jesus pointed the man toward a richer, fuller, brighter life. Why didn’t Jesus just say “See”? Could it be—for the blind man and for us—that humility usually precedes healing?

His neighbors and those who had formerly seen him begging asked, “Isn’t this the same man who used to sit and beg?” (John 9:8). The healed man himself confirmed that he used to be blind, but was no longer. When Jesus is making you more alive, you walk away from so many “used to be’s.” You’re more than a human being; you’re a human being becoming a new kind of human. Jesus helps people see what they didn’t used to see and be who they didn’t used to be. “How then were your eyes opened?” they demanded. He replied, “The man they call Jesus…” (John 9:10-11a).

Going to college was an eye-opener for me. So was traveling to Uganda. So was encountering Jesus in my senior year of high school. Can you think of an experience that was an eye-opener for you? Are you praying for a friend or family member who needs an eye-opener?

The apostle Paul tells us that “Satan, who is the god of this world, has blinded the minds of those who don’t believe. They are unable to see the glorious light of the Good News” (2 Corinthians 4:4a, nlt). A blind mind is even more life-depleting than dysfunctional eyes.

Life Question: Can you think of one negative characteristic of your life that “used to be” but is no longer, since you saw who Jesus is?

THERE’S MORE TO SEE when you look at Jesus.

I guess “dumb blonde” jokes are politically incorrect these days, but there is one harmless little story about a golden-hair that still makes me chuckle. Blondie said she wanted to go on a spaceship and land on the sun. “That’s crazy,” her husband protested. “You’d be fried to a crisp.” “No way,” his wife responded, “I’d go at night!”

Light is mentioned 21 times in John’s gospel. John called Jesus the light of men (1:4), the Life-Light (1:5, msg), the True light (1:9), the clear light (9:39, msg), and on it goes.

In John 9:5, Jesus declared, “While I am in the world, I am the light of the world.”

Notice the definite article. Not a light but the light. What an audacious claim! As we all know, light represents hope, direction, illumination, attraction, and life itself. Jesus is claiming to be all of those things for anyone who sees Him for who He is. He is the whole spectrum of deep, unending life.

If you’re discussing light with a scientific person, he or she may speak in terms of electromagnetic radiation—radiant energy with wavelengths ranging from one billionth of a meter to over 60,000 miles. What’s more, our eyes only perceive a tiny sliver of that light. That miniscule shard of light visible to us is light with a wavelength ranging from four hundred billionths of a meter (ultra violet light) to seven hundred billionths of a meter (infrared light). Think of it like this: If a cable stretched all the way around the earth represented total light (every wavelength of electromagnetic radiation), visible light would be but a scratch of a pencil or pen on that cable. When it comes to light, there’s so much more than what we see!

When the apostle John saw the Lord’s glory shine through His earth-suit veil on the Mount of Transfiguration, he fell face down in shock and awe. If you and I saw His entire wavelength, His radiant glory, our eyeballs would pop like popcorn.

Jesus is the light of the world. He is hope, illumination, direction, attraction—and so very much beyond what we could ever express. Jesus is life. He’s the life-light, God’s invisible aliveness made visible. Put on your sunglasses and take a closer look.

Life Challenge: Ask Jesus Christ to open the eyes of your heart and show you something about Himself this week that you’ve never noticed before.

BE LIKE JESUS today. Look for someone to bless.

Richard is in our Thursday morning men’s Bible study group. Born prematurely, he and his twin brother were placed in an incubator and given too much oxygen. That critical mistake robbed them both of eyesight for life.

That’s a human tragedy, of course, but the truth is, you and I lack sight, too. All of us lack the ability to see all that may happen (foresight), is happening (insight) and has happened (hindsight). Since Adam and Eve, we’ve all been born partially blind. There is so much we don’t see.

One day Jesus and His disciples encountered a man who couldn’t see. He was… a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:1-2). The disciples believed that sickness of any kind was the result of sin, and they were looking for someone to blame.

“Neither this man nor his parents sinned,” said Jesus, “but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him” (John 9:3). Jesus introduced an entirely new concept here: Sometimes God uses difficult things in our lives to display His glory, His irrepressible aliveness! I wonder how often we do what they did and look at things from the wrong angle. We look for someone to blame when we should be looking for someone to bless.

Jesus said the man’s blindness was an opportunity for the “works of God” to be on display in his life. What are the works of God? The works of God make people more alive in Christ, and God wants to put such works on display in our lives.

“As long as it is day, we must do the works of him who sent me. Night is coming, when no one can work” (John 9:4).

In today’s passage, Jesus sticks with the subject of sight, day and night, dark and light. Spiritual night is living without light. Living without Jesus in my life is living without light. The ultimate night of all nights is hell. Since God is not in hell, hell is pitch black. Where God is, however, even pitch black becomes bright light!

Life Challenge: Look for at least one person you could blame today, and bless them instead, in Jesus’ Name. Thank Him for helping you see the opportunity to be a blessing.