John 10

Here's the next reading: http://www.esvbible.org/John+10/

Jesus calls Himself the shepherd. He says that He is the gatekeeper, and He protects His sheep. He knows them by name, and the sheep know His voice and will come to Him. Any who try to enter not through the gates are thieves and robbers, and the sheep do not know their voices and will run away. We are the sheep in this illustration. Jesus is our protector, and He leads us where we need to go. To put this in prospective, sheep are just about the dumbest creatures on the face of the Earth, and they get lost very easily, but if one does get lost, the shepherd will lead the rest of his flock to a safe place and go to rescue the lost sheep. Jesus says He is the gate for the sheep, and all those before Him were thieves and robbers, and sheep didn't respond to them. We were waiting for our savior. He says that those who enter the sheep pen through Him will be saved. We can only be saved if we go through Jesus Christ. Thieves come to kill and destroy, but Jesus says He cam to give His sheep life with God for all eternity, so they will have everything they need. Jesus goes on saying that He is the good shepherd because the good shepherd will lay down his life for his sheep. He finishes His metaphor by saying that He will lay down His life for His sheep, but He will get it back again because no one can take His life from Him. Jesus has power over even life and death, and can come back to life because He has more power than any force that will try to stop Him.

Later, the Jews come to Jesus and tell Him that if He is the Messiah, he should say it plainly, to which He replies that He has, but they have not listened to Him because they are not His sheep. His sheep know His voice, and He knows who they are. They follow Him, and He gives them eternal life. No one will ever take the away from Him because God is greater than anything else, and Jesus and God are one. This is incredible. If we truly believe that Jesus Christ is our Lord and Savior, nothing can ever separate us from Him, and He has given us eternal life. But the Jews despised Him for saying that He was the same as God and the Son of God, and they again had rocks to stone Him. Jesus knows this and asks them for which of His good deeds are they planning to stone Him for. They say its not for good deeds but because He dishonors God by calling Himself the Son of God. Jesus responds with scripture and claims that He has spoken true. They try to arrest Him again, but He gets away.