sheep gate

Sometimes the truth is confusing. Sometimes it only seems confusing, because what people say is truth isn’t. The difference between being confused by the truth and not trusting lies is this: God’s chosen, by his grace, have a nose for the truth.

I think that’s what Jesus meant when he said this, in John 10:7-10: “Therefore Jesus said again, ‘Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.’”

The world is full of predators, people who don’t care about us but only want to take from us. They value us for the ways we can help them. They want us to see them as caring, but they don’t care. And we know it. If we really are Jesus’ sheep, we can tell, and we don’t follow.

Jesus gives us the image in John 10 both of himself as shepherd – the one who does care – and the gate. As sheep gate he is the only way for us to get through to the safe pasture, where we can have the fullest kind of life. And he says in these verses that as his sheep, we can see that for truth. We recognize the good shepherd in the same way that we reject the thieves and robbers. 

That’s comforting to me in these times of competing messages. People seem to think the louder they yell, or the more all-caps and exclamation points they use, the more convincing they will be. They start their posts with “Let’s be clear,” and “make no mistake,” and then spout any kind of garbage they want. Their only goal is to get my support for their cause, however questionable it or their methods might be.

It all feels wrong, offensive even, because by God’s grace I can pick out the predators. I can remember that Jesus had a different way and a different message. I can go with the other voices to my own death and destruction. Or I can go through the sheep gate and find that full life.