Transforming Your Mind (Part 3) Today's Three-minute Bible Study Print, Study and Apply Title: Transforming Your Mind (Part 3) -------------------------- Date: 2/13/2001 Keywords: "Lord" "Shepherd" Welcome to eXXit, the web site designed to help you stand strong in the face of sexual temptation. Passages*: Psalm 23: 1a The LORD is my shepherd…. John 10:11-17 11. "I [Jesus] am the good shepherd; the good shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. 12. "He who is a hired hand, and not a shepherd, who is not the owner of the sheep, sees the wolf coming, and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13. "He flees because he is a hired hand and is not concerned about the sheep. 14. "I am the good shepherd, and I know My own and My own know Me, 15. even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep. 16. "I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd. 17. "For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. Question 1. The natural first thought is to wonder whether or not we want God to be our shepherd. What do you think it means from God’s perspective to become our shepherd?   2. What is required of a "good" shepherd according to Jesus?     Practical help It’s normal to look at life from our own perspective first, but there is more to the statement, "The LORD is my shepherd," than simply how it affects us. It is really an amazing thought to think that Almighty God, who made and runs the universe in all its complexity, has both the time and desire to be a shepherd for each one of us. And it is not simply an empty title. It required a sacrifice. Do you remember how I said yesterday that the role of a shepherd in your life is completely different from any other relationship you can imagine? This difference between the sheep and shepherd made sense to David when he wrote the Twenty-third Psalm, and he was content with the difference between God and man. But little could he have realized that God would do the unthinkable on our behalf. No real shepherd would agree to becoming a sheep in order to love the sheep better, but that is exactly what Jesus did. When John the Baptist saw Jesus he said, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" (John 1:29). Paul expressed the same idea as John the Baptist this way. "Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although He existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied Himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross" (Philippians 2:5-8). So Jesus, who was God and who called Himself "the Good Shepherd," became a man in order to die on the cross as a sacrifice for you and me. If He is willing to go to this extent to show His love for you, will He not also help you overcome your problems with sexual addictions? You can take it to the bank, because He is your good shepherd. eXXit homepage Index of three-minute studies Copyright 2001 by eXXit *"Scripture taken from the NEW AMERICAN STANDARD BIBLE®, © Copyright The Lockman Foundation 1960, 1962, 1963, 1968, 1971, 1972, 1973, 1975, 1977, 1995. Used by permission."