Revelations 7:17 "For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; ‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’ ‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’” This episode is talking about how we can block out the noise of the world so we can listen to our good shepherd and let Him lead us to the springs of living waters. Music:"Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Hearing The Voice of Our Good Shepherd
Revelations 7:17 "For the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd; ‘he will lead them to springs of living water.’ ‘And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.’”
What a beautiful image of God wiping away every tear from our eyes. I don’t know about you, but I am a crier. I tend to cry a lot. God is going to be busy if He is going to wipe away every tear. In all seriousness though, this is a beautiful scripture. It starts off by talking about the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd. That Lamb is Jesus. He is our good shepherd. It says in John 10:11, “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” This is exactly what Jesus did for us, He laid down His life for us, his sheep. I heard a story yesterday from a friend about an incident that happened when she was walking in Walmart during the pandemic. She was walking in Walmart with a mask on because there was still a mandate that a mask was required to shop there. However, there was a man walking towards her with two young girls with him. When he passed my friend he made sheep sounds at her. He was implying that she was a sheep and that she was blindly following the other sheep.
I have heard this analogy often and despite the popular belief that sheep are stupid, they are actually incredibly intelligent. They have very impressive cognitive ability and just like humans, they form deep and lasting bonds with each other, they stick up for one another in fights, and they grieve when they lose a friend. They experience all of the same emotions that we do including fear, joy, boredom, anger and happiness to name a few. We envision the sheep blindly following whoever and going wherever they are told to go. This is not the case. Sheep recognize their shepherd’s voice and they will go wherever their shepherd tells them to go. They have complete trust in their shepherd. The shepherd in return for this obedience loves them and is willing to lay down his life for them. How beautiful is that?
I think this is one way that sheep have an advantage over us. They recognize their shepherd’s voice and so they follow it. I think we have a hard time figuring out whose voice to listen not. The world is so busy and so noisy and there are so many voices speaking into our lives. There are the voices of the loved ones around us. They are speaking to us and leading us in a direction they think we should go. Then there are our friends who may not have the same beliefs we do and they are leading us in the direction they think we should go. Then there are all the voices of those in the world that also usually have opinions of how we should and shouldn’t be living. There are so many voices and we get confused and we don’t know which ones to listen to. Often times the voices and the noises of the world are so loud we can’t hear the voice of our good shepherd. The voices of the world are not the voices that we need to be listening to and yet they are so loud we can’t hear any other voices.
The verse above says that the shepherd will lead us to springs of living waters. Don’t we want this? Don’t we want to follow the shepherd that will lead us to springs of living waters? So, how do we learn to hear the Lord’s voice more? How do we learn to tune out all the noise of the world so we can focus in on the Lord’s voice? First, we can begin by spending time each day trying to hear the Lord’s voice. How much time do you spend each day asking the Lord for things in prayer? How much time do you spend sitting quietly and asking the Lord what He wants to say to you? The Lord wants to talk to us, we just don’t give Him the time to talk. This can be your first step. Just sit quietly ask let the Lord know you are ready to listen. At our prayer group we usually begin by saying, “Speak Lord, your servants are listening.” (1 Samuel 3:10) You do not have to start off by sitting down and giving God 30 minutes of quite time to speak to you. If you have never done this before 30 minutes is a long time. Even if you have, it still may be a long time. Just start out with 5 minutes of quiet time and see what happens.
The next step that can help you start hearing the Lord’s word more is to write down whatever He tells you in that five minutes. I struggle with just sitting there and not thinking of anything and not doing anything for 5 min. So, I do an exercise I learned from Fern Gorin at the Life Purpose Institute. I ask the Lord to speak to me through my pen and then I write down whatever comes to mind for the next 5 minutes or however long I am sitting there for. This is especially helpful because then you can go back and read over it. Now, is every single thing that comes to mind in that 5 minutes from the Lord, probably not, but it is a start. I think the more times you do this, the more and more of what you write will be from the Lord. Also, you are asking the Lord to show up and when we ask, He answers. So, why wouldn’t he show up and talk to you through your pen? The key to this exercise is to not question everything that comes into your mind. Just write it all down and then you can read over it later and think about what you think the Lord was telling you. While you are writing, don’t second guess your self, don’t let the enemies voice come in and get you to question why the Lord would talk to you, block out all the doubt and just trust that you asked the Lord to show up and so He will.
If we want the shepherd to lead us to springs of living waters and we want the Lord to wipe away every tear, then we need to learn to listen to the shepherd’s voice and to follow Him where ever he is leading us. The way I suggested above is just one way to begin to hear the Lord’s voice. If it doesn’t resonate with you, no worries, do something different. We are all different people and we all do things differently. The important part of this message is not that you listen to the Lord’s voice the same way I do. The important thing is that we all figure out a way to block out all the noise of the world and start finding a way to hear the voice of our good good shepherd.
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we ask you to help us hear your voice. We want you to lead us to the living waters and to wipe away all our tears. Help us to hear your voice above all others. Help us to block out the noise of the world and concentrate on your voice. Lord, we are so grateful for all you do for us. We are so grateful to be counted as one of your sheep. You are an awesome shepherd and we love you. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen.
Thank you for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I look forward to spending time with you again tomorrow. Have a blessed day!