Jesus is a shepherd who knows the names of all his sheep.
Knowing the name of someone can be important. We all have been in a situation where we know we should remember the name of someone we meet, and we don't.
you have to ask for the name, and you can see the disappointment on the face of the other. You forgot this person's name, how could you?
It must also have happened to you that someone prominent in your eyes, someone whom you don't meet too often, nevertheless—to your great surprise—remembers your name. To be called by your name by a friend always gives you a warm feeling. Your uttered name touches something in you like nothing else.
Jesus says of himself that he knows us by name. In the Hebrew Scriptures we are told how God inscribed the name of his people on the palm of God's hand. Jesus reveals to us the personal love of God for each one of us. God knows you by name. God knows me by name. It is a love that resembles the love the Father has for Jesus, and Jesus for the Father. It is a love that not only relates us to God, but also to each other. It makes us belong to the same family, or, to use the image of Jesus, it makes us members of the same flock.
One day Jesus was out for a walk, strolling near the walls surrounding heaven, when he heard an old man's voice call from the other side. "Hello? Hello?" "Who is it?" Jesus replied. "Just a poor, old carpenter searching for his son," the old man replied. Jesus' heart leapt with joy and he called out, "Joseph?" The old voice answered back, "Pinocchio?"
Which Jesus do you follow? Which Jesus do you serve? If Ephesians says to imitate Christ Then why do you look so much like the world?
Cause my Jesus bled and died He spent His time with thieves and liars He loved the poor and accosted the arrogant So which one do you want to be?
Blessed are the poor in spirit Or do we pray to be blessed with the wealth of this land Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness Or do we ache for another taste of this world of shifting sand
Cause my Jesus bled and died for my sins He spent His time with thieves and sluts and liars He loved the poor and accosted the rich So which one do you want to be?
Who is this that you follow This picture of the American dream If Jesus was here would you walk right by on the other side or fall down and worship at His holy feet
Pretty blue eyes and curly brown hair and a clear complexion Is how you see Him as He dies for Your sins But the Word says He was battered and scarred Or did you miss that part Sometimes I doubt we'd recognize Him
Cause my Jesus bled and died He spent His time with thieves and the least of these He loved the poor and accosted the comfortable So which one do you want to be?
Cause my Jesus would never be accepted in my church The blood and dirt on His feet might stain the carpet But He reaches for the hurting and despises the proud I think He'd prefer Beale St. to the stained glass crowd And I know that He can hear me if I cry out loud
I want to be like my Jesus! I want to be like my Jesus! I want to be like my Jesus! I want to be like my Jesus!
Not a posterchild for American prosperity, but like my Jesus You see I'm tired of living for success and popularity I want to be like my Jesus but I'm not sure what that means to be like You Jesus Cause You said to live like You, love like You but then You died for me Can I be like You Jesus? I want to be like you Jesus! I want to be like my Jesus!
“...to follow Jesus is not for the fragile, the timid, the self-centered. To return his love is to love as he loved: intelligently and passionately, freely and with every fiber of your being. To love as he loved is to care as he cared: not for a misty mass called humanity, but for every sister and brother who crosses your path; not simply those you like and who like you, but those you dislike on sight, those who have no socially redeeming qualities, the weirdos, those who live and think and even sin differently from you.
More than anything else, to love as he loved is to care for the sheep that limp: those who hunger for bread or justice or love; those who have no pillow for their head, no shoulder for their troubled heart; those who are imprisoned behind bars or within their tortured selves."
Posts
