Message summary: Are you listening? Do you know your Shepherd’s voice?

Listen to our message on your audio player.

“He calls His own sheep by name. His sheep follow Him because they know His voice” (John 10:3,4).

Many voices fill our lives. Some worthy of listening to, but many, many others are not. For the last several months I have been getting calls several times a day with a cheerful female Artificial Intelligence voice informing me that my loan has been approved  (though I never applied for one). 

They all have different names. Yesterday one was from Nelly McAllister who informed me she had some news I would want to hear. She wanted to level with me that the program I qualified for would end soon. (If Nelly McAllister is reading this please stop calling me, although I am virtually certain she is not a real person!)

These are examples of unwelcome relentless intrusions that attempt to capture our attention and get us off the right path. It’s similar in the spiritual realm, where our “enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour!” (1 Peter 5:8).

Jesus shared a parable in John 10 that would have connected with His initial listeners. Many of them would be familiar with the life of the shepherd and the rich Biblical literature that describes God as our Shepherd, first mentioned in Genesis 45:18, and most familiar to many of us in Psalm 23. Later in the context of today's verse Jesus states that He is the “Good Shepherd”.

However, the phrase we want to especially consider today is "They know His voice". One of the most important ongoing lessons of life is the ability to recognize and distinguish the voice of the Good Shepherd amidst the clamor of other voices and noise. The times we live in call for great discernment.

We hear “His voice” in various ways; through His Spirit, in our personal reading and study of the Scriptures, through prayer, through the proclamation of His Word in our churches, through godly relationships. But we have a choice regarding our response to the Shepherd’s voice. Really, it’s a daily choice.

Do we choose to listen carefully and heed His voice, separating His voice among the many other voices and noises that vie for our attention? We desire that this daily encouragement devotional be a little whisper, perhaps at an opportune moment such as a break at work, the lunch hour or toward the late evening.

Are you listening? Do you know your Shepherd’s voice? Ponder this verse, “But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil” (Hebrews 5:14). Today, as we regularly partake of the solid food offered to us through the Word of God let us learn to distinguish the voice of the Master and heed His bidding!

Be encouraged today, Hebrews 3:13

Stephen & Brooksyne Weber