Are you scared today? Are you hurting? Perhaps you’re struggling with addictions or bad habits. Maybe you’re stuck in an abusive relationship. Maybe you’re worried about your health, or the health of someone you love. Or maybe, as you look at the chaos careening through our culture, you’re just anxious about how things will turn out in the future. Maybe you feel just as terrified and helpless as a sheep hunted by wolves (John 10:12).

Well, the cross and the empty tomb prove there is a good shepherd who can protect us from our worst fears. His crucifixion illustrates what Jesus says in John 10:12-13: that He didn’t take on human flesh and come into our world because of His own self-interest. No, Jesus is no corrupt politician or greedy conqueror: He came not to receive a crown but a cross, not to receive power and glory, but to give us all that He is and all that He has.

And Jesus calls to everyone, no matter who we are, no matter what we’ve done. In verse 16, He points out that His call extends not just to the Jewish people who lived in the first century A.D., but to people from other cultures, all over the world, regardless of time or space. And that’s because His sacrifice is sufficient to atone for the sins of everyone Who has ever lived.

Yes, Jesus loves sinners like you and me enough to lay down His life for us (10:15). But the reason we know we can trust Him is because He took up His life again (10:18), rising from the grave after His crucifixion. Because He is risen, we know He is still our good shepherd, guiding us every day of our lives, making one flock of all who look to Him as Savior and Lord.

Do you know Him today? Will you listen to His voice? Will you trust the One Who loves you so much?

John 10:1-21 (NASB)

“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber.
2 “But he who enters by the door is a shepherd of the sheep.
3 “To him the doorkeeper opens, and the sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name, and leads them out.
4 “When he puts forth all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice.
5 “And a stranger they simply will not follow, but will flee from him, because they do not know the voice of strangers.”
6 This figure of speech Jesus spoke to them, but they did not understand what those things were which He had been saying to them.
7 Jesus therefore said to them again, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep.
8 “All who came before Me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not hear them.
9 “I am the door; if anyone enters through Me, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.
10 “The thief comes only to steal, and kill, and destroy; I came that they might have life, and might have it abundantly.
11 “I am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.
12 “He who is a hireling, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, beholds the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep, and flees, and the wolf snatches them, and scatters them.
13 “He flees because he is a hireling, and is not concerned about the sheep.
14 “I am the good shepherd; and I know My own, and My own know Me,
15 even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.
16 “And I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they shall hear My voice; and they shall become one flock with one shepherd.
17 “For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life that I may take it again.
18 “No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again. This commandment I received from My Father.”
19 There arose a division again among the Jews because of these words.
20 And many of them were saying, “He has a demon and is insane. Why do you listen to Him?”
21 Others were saying, “These are not the sayings of one demon-possessed. A demon cannot open the eyes of the blind, can he?”