Thursday, March 24, 2011

Seeking The Gospel of the Kingdom

Seeking God to Form Many New Church Communities

In my office, I keep a miniature sheep on a bookshelf. This sheep serves as a reminder to me. When I look at it, I remember the time in my family's life when we spent a year living on a sheep farm in rural central Illinois. I learned a lot watching those sheep each day. I began to read up on sheep. My resources told me that sheep eat the pasture to the ground. I also learned that sheep will die of starvation on that same plot after the grass is gone, because they don't leave to look for other food. Without a shepherd to guide them, sheep stay in the same place. Without a shepherd, the sheep are hopelessly lost.

According to Hebrews 13:21, Jesus, our Good Shepherd, has equipped us with everything good for doing His will. And what is His will? God is for people. He desires that all would come to know Him. We are reminded in today's reading that no people are beyond God's reach.

God is capable of reaching and changing the hearts of every person in this city. God equips us to be part of that mission. In the Gospels, Jesus used the image of a shepherd searching for his lost sheep to describe God’s love for those who have strayed. I want to be part of that mission.

 We, like the shepherds of Israel, are cautioned in Ezekiel 34:4 about not caring for the flock. “You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost.”  We are on mission from God--to gather the sheep, so they aren't lost.

Let's join in unity of prayer and purpose that God would use each of us to bring these sheep into His fold – that not one part of this city would be left out in the bare pasture.

Dean Ridder

Administrator, Isaac Newton Christian Academy