“Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter by the door into the fold of the sheep, but climbs up some other way, he is a thief and a robber” (John 10:1).

 

Psalm 4

 

One cold and rainy night, a dear friend found a two-or-three-day-old fawn lost, and probably dying, in a drainage ditch. My friend knew of my heart for wounded and orphaned animals and came to me with the wet, shivering, helpless spotted doe. I warmed a bottle of goat milk and tried to place it into the terrified baby deer’s mouth. The fawn let out a deafening cry of horror as, drop-by-drop, I forced the healing formula in her system.

Three days later, the little, spotted girl was following me like a puppy dog and downing bottles of life-giving milk like a hungry child. Four months later, I set her free to join the wild herd that lives in the woods near my house.

 

 

1. Psalm 4:1 – “Answer me when I call, O God of my righteousness! You have relieved me in my distress; be gracious to me and hear my prayer.” Like the cry of a young whitetail in distress, the cry of a lamb is deafening. It’s an outcry that only a loving parent with the milk of life can satisfy. Jesus is our loving Shepherd. When was your outcry to Him the most deafening?
2. How did He meet you in your distress?
3. Psalm 4:2 – “O sons of men, how long will my honor become a reproach? How long will you love what is worthless and aim at deception?” What is David proclaiming about our patterns of sin, and how do those patterns affect our relationship with God?
4. Psalm 4:3 – “But know that the Lord has set apart the godly man for Himself; the Lord hears when I call to Him.” What does it mean to you to be “set apart” from the herd by The Shepherd and to follow Him into places of worth, worship, woundedness and witness that other sheep are not asked to travel?
5. John 14:13 & 14 – “Whatever you ask in My name, that will I do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. 14 If you ask Me anything in My name, I will do it.” What is Jesus trying to communicate to you today as you cry out to Him?

 

1. John 13:15 – “For I gave you an example that you also should do as I did to you.” From today’s scripture, how does THE Shepherd inspire you to shepherd your flock?

 

“But know that the Lord has set apart the godly man for Himself; the Lord hears when I call to Him” (Psalm 4:3).

Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication