Journey through John 10:16

Good Morning Church Family – Journey Through John

Read John 10:16
 
Devo Thought: I love passages like this one. The truth about our faith is that it is exclusive. There really is one way, one truth, one life. Not everyone gets in. This is a hard and fast truth about the world and about our faith. However, this truth is so often misunderstood. At times it has been taken to mean that not everyone is invited. The exclusivity of Christianity is taken to mean that the faith is only for this group or this people and not for that group. This isn’t really what exclusivity is about. Within exclusivity, there is a beautiful inclusivity. From the beginning, God’s plan was to bless all the families of the earth by sending his Messiah (see Genesis 12:1-3). This promise to bless the whole earth, all the peoples, all the nations, is echoed throughout Scripture. So, when we see Jesus give voice to it again by saying “I have other sheep that are not from this sheep pen,” we shouldn’t be surprised. Jesus is just bringing to fulfillment God the Father’s plan from the very beginning. He has been working since the Fall, since the Tower of Babel, to reunite all people into “one flock” with “one shepherd.” This is what the Apostle Paul is talking about in Ephesians 2: “But now in Christ Jesus, you who were far away (the Gentiles) have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For he is our peace, who made both groups (Jews and Gentiles) one and tore down the dividing wall of hostility…so that he might create in himself one new man from the two, resulting in peace.” Jesus is for everyone, and it is our job to cast the net wide because he wants to bring us all together under himself, the good shepherd.
 
Let us thank God for the wideness of His plan and promise.