Terry, Bruce. 1977. He Calls His Sheep By Name. Power for Today, May/June.
Bible Thought: "To him the gatekeeper opens; the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out" (John 10:3).
During the time of Jesus, shepherds would often leave their sheep in sheepfolds for safety overnight. Now a sheepfold was a walled enclosure with a door in it, and it usually had no roof. Several flocks would be kept in one sheepfold with one shepherd guarding the door. Each shepherd knew his own sheep and his sheep knew him. Jesus even tells us in John 10:3 that when a shepherd entered in the morning, he would call his own sheep by name. By name! Think about that for a minute. The shepherd knows each sheep individually and knows his name. Now when Jesus talked about the shepherd and his sheep, he was really talking about himself and his followers. In John 10:14 he explained, "I am the good shepherd; I know my own and my own know me." Jesus knows me and you and all his sheep, and more than that, he knows us all by name. How comforting! "All we like sheep had gone astray until the shepherd came. He brought us to the one sheepfold, and there he calls our name."
Hymn: "Savior, Like a Shepherd Lead Us."
Father, thank you for sending your Son Jesus to become our shepherd—a shepherd who knows us by name and who loves us enough to lay down his life for us. In his name. Amen.
