Posts Tagged "beautiful"
Christ Is The Door
For a good many years we have wondered why Christ mixed His figures in His parable of the Good Shepherd. At one place He calls Himself the Shepherd and at another the Door.
A traveler in Palestine once had a conversation with a shepherd at work near a sheepfold who showed him the various features of the fold. Thereupon the traveler remarked: “You say, here is the sheepfold, there are the sheep, and this is the doorway; but where is the door?
“The door?” asked the shepherd. “I am the door. I lie across the entrance at night. No sheep can pass out, no wolf can come in, except over my body.” “Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. I am the door: by me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out, and find pasture.” (John 10:7,9 KJV)
“I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep. I am the good shepherd, and know my sheep, and am known of mine.” (John 10:11,14 KJV)
Beautiful, isn’t it? Christ did not mix His figures after all. He is both the Shepherd and the Door.
Read MoreAffliction – The Soil of Growth and Beauty
A little girl walking in a garden noticed a particularly beautiful flower. She admired its beauty and enjoyed its fragrance. “It’s so pretty!” she exclaimed. As she gazed on it, her eyes followed the stem down to the soil in which it grew. “This flower is too pretty to be planted in such dirt!” she cried. So she pulled it up by its roots and ran to the water faucet to wash away the soil. It wasn’t long until the flower wilted and died.
When the gardener saw what the little girl had done, he exclaimed, “You have destroyed my finest plant!”
“I’m sorry, but I didn’t like it in that dirt,” she said.
The gardener replied, “I chose that spot and mixed the soil because I knew that only there could it grow to be a beautiful flower.”
Often we murmur because of the circumstances into which God has “sovereignaly” placed us. We fail to realize that He is using our pressures, trials, and difficulties to bring us to a new degree of spiritual beauty.
“Say not ye, There are yet four months, and then cometh harvest? behold, I say unto you, Lift up your eyes, and look on the fields; for they are white already to harvest. And he that reapeth receiveth wages, and gathereth fruit unto life eternal: that both he that soweth and he that reapeth may rejoice together. And herein is that saying true, One soweth, and another reapeth. I sent you to reap that whereon ye bestowed no labour: other men laboured, and ye are entered into their labours.” (John 4:35-38 KJV)
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