FBC Daily Devotional – October 4, 2021

Faith Baptist Church

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Well, good morning to you, good Monday morning to you, starting off to a new week and the first full week of October.

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Hard to believe that we're in the last quarter of 2021 already, but here we are, and time just keeps marching on.

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Well, last week I shared devotionals from Mississippi, the great state of Mississippi, and after a few days of a conference there in Mississippi, we made our way a little further south to Alabama, Gulf Shores, Alabama, another place we've never been to before.

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And so this week you're getting the devotionals from the balcony in Gulf Shores overlooking the

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Gulf. Unfortunately, it's a pretty cloudy, crummy day. It's the only day we've had, our last day actually here in Gulf Shores, and the only day we've had where there's been any rain whatsoever.

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In fact, every day it's been like cloudless skies, and today the rain moved in and it's just been one of those kind of gloomy days.

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So I know, you're feeling great sorrow for me, right? Well, I'm sorry to mention all that.

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But anyway, today we're in John chapter 10 in our readings for the day, and this is really one of the most precious passages,

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I think, for believers in Jesus. Jesus in this passage calls himself the

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Good Shepherd, and he emphasizes in this passage the intimacy that he has in his relationship with his sheep, that he knows each one of them and each one of them knows him.

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They hear his voice, they follow him, and as the Good Shepherd, he emphasizes the care that he has for his sheep.

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What a blessing it is to know when you are one of his sheep. You've heard his voice, and you've heard him call you to himself, and by grace through faith in him, you have put your faith and trust in him.

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You're counting on him to save you from your eternal sins. And its consequences, and to give to you eternal life.

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And he makes that promise in this passage, that as your Good Shepherd, he secures you and he provides for you.

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One of the things he says in this passage is that he came to give his life for his sheep, that they may have life, and as verses 10 and 11 say, that they may have it more abundantly.

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So not just that you might survive, but that you might live, and that you might live eternally.

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To have abundant life. I think some people misunderstand what that means, that abundant life.

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Some seem to think that it has to do with having an abundance of this life's stuff.

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Abundance of comfort, abundance of possessions, abundance of ease, and so forth.

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But I think Jesus is speaking of more spiritual abundance than material and physical and things of this life.

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To have an abundant life, I believe, would involve the certainty of eternity.

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The joy that you can have in this life, knowing that Jesus holds you in his hands, that you are secure in him, and that come what may, in this life, you have eternal life.

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You have everlasting life. You have an outlook on life that the unconverted person just simply does not and cannot have.

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You have a worldview, you have a view of the world that is impossible for the unconverted person to have, for one who is not his sheep to have.

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You think about all the chaos and the mess going on in our world, in our culture, in our own country, and imagine, if you know

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Christ as your Savior, imagine having to look at all of this without knowing him, and without having a biblical understanding of the workings of God, of the sovereignty of God, of his providential work, of the fact that those who are in governmental authority are in the palm of his hand.

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Their hearts turn according to his control and his desire. So what a perspective you have.

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What an abundance of life that you have that those who are not his sheep do not have.

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But there's another thought that came to me when you get to the end of the passage, end of John chapter 10, and verses 19 through 21, and you know, here's a whole bunch of people who have just been hearing

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Jesus speak, and some of them have heard his voice gladly. They are his sheep.

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They have responded to him, and they are following him, and yet there are some who hear the same thing, the very same things that Jesus has been telling, and their response is they want to destroy him.

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They want to eliminate him. They want to silence his voice. All that does is really point out the fact that there are those who are his sheep, and there are those who are not, those who would want to silence

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Jesus, those who refuse to listen to him, and who would want to silence those who are followers of him.

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They make it abundantly clear they're not his sheep, and they don't have that abundant life that he came to give.

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I trust today that you are one of Jesus' sheep, and that confidence gives you great comfort and encouragement to your soul, especially in these challenging, confusing, frustrating times in which we live.

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May the Lord encourage you today in knowing that you are his sheep. Our Father and our

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God, we do thank you today that you sent the Savior to give his life for his sheep, this good shepherd of the sheep.

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Thank you for him. Thank you for the ongoing ministry that he has of caring for each one of his sheep.

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And this we pray in Jesus' name and for his sake, amen. All right, well have a good rest of your