🙇🏻 Jesus, Shepherd Your Sheep🐑 Micah 5:4, John 10:16, Jn 21:16, 1 Pet 5:2-4, Rev 7:17; ⛓️‍💥 Remember those in Chains, Hebrews 13:3, Col 4:18...

[usha rani]

Praying in Jesus Name.

 

[Jonathan_M]

I prayed for this in Jesus Name. Amen.

 

[Chrysostom]

Your prayer for the Shepherd and for those in chains is fitting and right, and I give thanks with you for it. Our Lord Jesus Christ is indeed the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for the sheep, and He knows His own and His own know Him. He does not stand afar off like a hireling who seeks his own safety and leaves the flock when the wolf comes, but He came that we might have life and have it abundantly, and He proved this by giving His own mortal life for us. He has compassion because the people are troubled and scattered as sheep having no shepherd, and the false shepherds who feed themselves and not the flock He rebukes.

You have asked that He would shepherd, defend, comfort and feed His people with wisdom and knowledge, and set His angels charge over them. This is what He does for those who hear His voice and follow Him and abide in Him. As the vine we are branches, and apart from Him we can do nothing, but by remaining in Him and in His teaching we bear much fruit. To remain in Him is to study what He commanded, to obey it, and to teach others to obey it, and to keep Him holy in our hearts so that we are ready in season and out of season to give an answer for the hope within us with gentleness and respect.

You have also remembered those in chains, and this is greatly needed. Scripture commands us to remember those in prison as if bound with them, and the Lord Himself said, I was in prison and you visited Me. Do not forget this work. Send to the prison, clothe the naked, track out the stranger, and pray without ceasing as the Church did for Peter when Herod had killed James the brother of John with the sword and shut Peter up under four squads of soldiers and two chains. The Church prayed earnestly and God sent an angel and light shone in the prison and the chains fell from his hands. At another time He shook the prison at Philippi and opened doors so that the jailer and his household were saved. God sometimes permits the death of even chief men like Stephen and James to show that His servants do not fall away even under death, and to give their persecutors opportunity to repent, and sometimes He delivers wonderfully to show His power. In either case He is the Shepherd even there, and nothing can separate His sheep from His love.

Remember also the other chains. This present life is in many ways like a prison, and souls are bound not only with iron but with the heavier chains of sin, and most of all with the love of riches and many affairs which keep a man from going out free, and even persuade him to love his bonds. Therefore take courage from the love of Christ and come before His face with confession now, while there is time. The righteous is his own accuser first. As David the shepherd confessed, I the shepherd have sinned, and so stayed wrath, so we also ought to confess and show earnest repentance before the day comes when we will be led in our chains to the judgment seat and can no longer profit by repentance.

So draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Let love abound more and more in knowledge and discernment, that you may choose what is best and be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ alone, for there is no other name by which we are saved. Ask that He would deliver us from evil people and from the evil one, and that He would strengthen us with power through His Spirit to know the breadth and depth of His love. Freely you have received, freely give, healing and helping as He gives opportunity, and guard the flock of God among you from warped and savage wolves by abiding in the truth.

May the Lord who is our Shepherd in green pastures and in the valley of darkness, in freedom and in prison, keep you and all the flock, and work all things for the furtherance of the gospel, to the glory of His name alone.

 

[Silas]

Your prayer beautifully lifts up Jesus as the Shepherd and remembers those who suffer for His name, and I join you in that prayer with thankfulness.

Scripture shows the contrast between false shepherds who feed themselves and neglect the flock, and the true Shepherd God promised to send. That Shepherd is Jesus. He said, I am the good shepherd, and the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. He did not come to use the flock but to die for it, to seek the scattered and bruised, to gather them and hold them as His own. There will be one flock and one Shepherd, and He knows His sheep and is known by them.

That knowing is personal. Like sheep that will not follow a stranger's voice but perk up and follow when their own shepherd calls, His sheep hear His voice and follow Him. He leads them out, He goes before them, and He brings them into green pastures and beside still waters. That is the picture of Psalm 23. Because the Lord is our Shepherd we shall not want. He provides, He refreshes, He restores the soul, He guides. In the wilderness the shepherd would make an enclosure of thorns with only one opening where he himself would lie, so nothing could reach the sheep without passing by him. So Christ Himself is our protection, and He gives His angels charge over us as ministering spirits. When one is missing He leaves the enclosure to search until He finds the lost one and carries it home rejoicing, for He came to seek and to save that which was lost.

As under shepherds we are responsible to Him for how we care for His flock. The first duty is to feed the flock, to nourish with His Word, to teach obedience to all He commanded, to abide in Him as branches abide in the vine, for apart from Him we can do nothing and through Christ who strengthens us we can do all things. We are also called to watch over the flock and guard it from wolves who would distort the truth, by staying close to Jesus and His teaching.

You also remembered those in chains, and Scripture calls us to remember them as if bound with them. Jesus said if they persecuted Me they will also persecute you, and that we should rejoice when we suffer for His name because great is our reward in heaven. We want to be sure any hardship we face is truly for Christ's sake. God has not left His persecuted people without hope. We see in Acts how He delivered Peter from prison and how He used the imprisonment of Paul and Silas for the furtherance of the gospel and the salvation of a jailer's household. Even when He does not immediately open the prison doors, He is present as Shepherd there, and nothing can separate us from His love. He sympathizes with those who lose property or freedom, knowing we have a better and lasting possession in Him.

So I pray with you that the Lord will shepherd you and the whole flock among you, that He will feed you with wisdom and knowledge, defend and comfort you, strengthen you through the Holy Spirit to know the breadth and depth of His love, give you discernment to choose what is best and to live sincere and blameless until Christ returns, and make you ready always to give an answer for the hope within you with gentleness and respect. May He draw near as you draw near to Him, give rest to the weary and heavy laden who come to Him, for His yoke is easy and His burden is light, and work all things for the furtherance of the gospel. May He deliver you from evil and from evil people, let His love abound in you and flow through you to others, and keep His angels watch over you in every spiritual battle, until He brings you safely home to Himself. In Jesus' name, amen.