“Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?”’ declares the LORD, “‘Do not I fill heaven and earth?”’ declares the Lord.”
~ Jeremiah 23:24
Hi James and Ellen,
Who do you think that God has put to a higher standard for communicating His Good News to guys, gals and kids? Who do you think that God has a greater expectation for for communicating His Good News His way to guys, gals and kids? Who do you think is angering God because he and/or she is using His Good News entrepreneurially to make money? Who do you think is infuriating God because he and/or she is using His Good News for a vehicle to obtain power, prestige and position? God has put shepherds to a higher standard for communicating His Good News. God has a greater expectation for shepherds to communicate His Good News His way. God is angered by guys and/or gals who are entrepreneurially using His Good News for making money. God is infuriated with guys and/or gals who are using His Good News for a vehicle for gaining power, prestige and position. Do you know what a shepherd expected to do? A shepherd is expected to protect and care for a flock of sheep. Do you know a shepherd? Do you know a sheep? Jesus was a shepherd. You are sheep. Prophets and priests were shepherds. God’s specially chosen guys and gals were sheep. Do you know what a sheep needs to survive? Sheep are not intelligent animals. Sheep need a shepherd to protect them from wild animals, guide them to water and help them when they are lost. God’s specially elected guys, gals and kids are God’s sheep today – making your grandmaa, grandpaa, dad, ma, Uncle Chris, Aunt Lynn . . . sheep, who need protection from wild animals – who are Satan’s minions, a guide to lead them to water – which is God’s Good News, and help when lost – which is from sin’s constant nagging pull.
A shepherd today is a guy or gal who teaches and/or preaches God’s Good News to other guys, gals and kids. Jeremiah 23 is about shepherds, God’s Good News and an angry, infuriated God. God – as God the Father, was very angry and infuriated with the shepherds who were scattering and destroying His sheep while using being a shepherd to create an identity in pursuit of self-worth versus helping sheep – who were His specially chosen guys and gals to survive in an evil, wicked world. Because of the ways that self-positioned priests and self-proclaimed prophets had manipulated His specially chosen guys and gals into listening to them instead of worshipping and obeying only Him, God would scatter His specially chosen guys and gals among neighboring enemy nations and people groups of guys and gals to teach them experientially Who the One True Shepherd is. Do you consciously accept the preaching of your shepherd – your pastor, as being indisputably and patently true? Is your shepherd – your pastor, guiding his sheep – you, on the secure, narrow path of hope or is your shepherd – your pastor, guiding his sheep – you, on the slippery, wide path of evil that some prophets and priests – through their position and power, led God’s specially chosen guys and gals. These prophets and priests who found devious ways to sneak into the sheepherder business of herding God’s specially chosen guys and gals for their own personal gain were seen by God as being very repulsive, godless, wicked guys. Because of what these prophets and priests did in leading His specially chosen guys and gals into the putrid pool that is full of sin opportunities and made up promises – such as through made up dreams that supposedly prophesied of hope, God – as God the Father, through God – as God the Spirit, made a promise through Jeremiah that these guys would end up eating bitter food and drinking poisoned water. (Your grandpaa believes that over the last 50 years or so since God called your grandpaa to serve Him as a missionary, morphing societal norms in the United States has led to guys and gals who believed that God called them to be His shepherds on planet Earth to think of themselves as being simply God’s servants to a few years later seeing themselves as being God’s servant leaders and now today expecting ascribed leader status. Your grandpaa blames the boomer generation – guys and gals who were born between 1946 and 1968, for the shift to have to be seen as a leader to attest to being . . .)
Something that shepherds of flocks of Christ-follower guys, gals and kids should never forget or that every preacher of God’s Good News should always remember is what God – as God the Spirit, had Jeremiah scribe in what is now verse 24, “Can anyone hide in secret places so that I cannot see him?”’ declares the LORD, “‘Do not I fill heaven and earth?”’ declares the Lord.” God hears every word that is spoken on planet Earth. When God hears a guy or gal say that what he or she is saying is what God as told him or her to say but in reality, the guy or gal is making up what he or she is saying, God has promised to make that guy or gal an endless disgrace and a perpetual shame that will always be an example that will never be forgotten. Your grandpaa saw what happened to a couple of guys who morally compromised the position that God had placed them in of being His shepherds for large flocks of Christ-follower guys, gals and kids. Even though these two guys – both lead pastors of mega churches – one guy in Colorado Springs and the other guy in Boston, have taken steps to be again viable, proactive members of a flock of Christ-follower guys, gals and kids, the scars of disgrace and shame will always be visible to the guys and gals who know these two guys. God has had you be born with a DNA that includes a sin marker. As the righteous branch of the Davidic family tree, God – as God the Son – came to planet Earth to be the immunization cure for the death pandemic caused by sin. A shepherd/pastor is to use God’s Good News as a fire to test and refine Christ-follower guys, gals and kids, as a hammer to pound God’s truths into Christ-follower guys, gals and kids and as a sword to judge the thoughts and attitudes of Christ-follower guys, gals and kids. Are you wishing to be shepherds someday?
Jeremiah 23 (822)