The shepherd who watches over me, feeds me, heals, me, protects me and the one who knows me better than I know myself, that is who Jesus is. Jesus puts Himself in the role of shepherd for those who belong to Him. So a shepherd takes his sheep out to pasture and guards them and keeps them safe, he then brings the sheep to a safe place for the night and as the sheep pass by him into the area he has chosen for the night he inspects them for injuries, if injured he cares for them then. He places himself at the entrance to night time holding area so that he would know when a sheep would try and escape or if a predator would attempt to come in.
This so much mirrors what Jesus does for me in my life. He a set boundaries for me to follow and like a sheep I must decide if I am going to stay within those boundaries. If I decide to leave the boundaries then I take the chance of being harmed and my relationship being changed because I have separated myself from Jesus. Jesus takes care of me, feeds me, heals me and loves me like no other can. He has loved me when I made choices that were not what He wanted and yet He also came searching for me until He found and brought me back into the flock and comforted me.
This I Am statement is a little easier to take back to the OT because we just have to back to Psalm 23, a very well known Psalm that David wrote, a shepherd before being anointed king by God.
I am currently reading a book by Warren Wiersbe tilted Jesus In The Present Tense: The I Am Statements of Christ.
I wrote this statement in the back of the book asking the question; are we living our lives as Jesus is the shepherd leading & protecting us or are living our lives as though a hired hand, ourselves, is in charge and runs whenever trouble shows up?
Tony-Great reflections on this statement. Several years ago, while taking a seminar on prayer, we were given Psalm 23 and told to allow God to speak to us through it. It is interesting how your very question came to my own mind then, are we truly living with the reality that Jesus is our shepherd permeating every aspect of our life? Something for us all to ponder. I have not read the book you reference, but it sounds like it will be a great read. Good job this week. Grade=100