{"id":258,"date":"2016-12-11T19:13:40","date_gmt":"2016-12-11T19:13:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/?p=258"},"modified":"2016-12-11T19:13:55","modified_gmt":"2016-12-11T19:13:55","slug":"258","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/?p=258","title":{"rendered":"Shepherding"},"content":{"rendered":"

15\u00a0<\/span>Then the\u00a0Lord<\/span>\u00a0said to me, \u201cTake again the equipment of a foolish shepherd.<\/span>16\u00a0<\/span>For I am going to raise up a shepherd over the land who will not care for the lost, or seek the young, or heal the injured, or feed the healthy, but will eat the meat of the choice sheep, tearing off their hooves.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Zechariah 11:15-16<\/p>\n

Seeing this description of foolish shepherds, it becomes clear that if we are not fools,\u00a0we must do the opposite of what we read here.<\/p>\n

Care for the lost<\/span> – unbelievers are not\u00a0them<\/em> but are right where we, as believers, we once were – lost, deceived, wandering and in need of help and direction. We are blind indeed if we have lost our mission to call the lost to repentance in humility and love.<\/p>\n

Seek the young<\/span> – we must not think that the time for the young is later – the young must be engaged now, be ministered to now, and be engaged in growing their spiritual gifts as part of the larger church ministries now.<\/p>\n

Heal the injured<\/span> – we cannot look the other way when a person is ill, disabled, mentally unstable, or any of the many injuries or ailments in this world – it is our call to provide aid rather than to marginalize or to wish that some government organization or somebody else will help. The church should be the hope of all mankind, not only the fit and strong.<\/p>\n

Feed the healthy<\/span> – God calls us not only to save the lost but to raise up disciples. While giving a person\u00a0hope for eternity is an awesome thing, to also provide the opportunity for eternal rewards and to be a productive citizen contributing to\u00a0the Kingdom adds so much to a life and ripples to the lives of those all around.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

15\u00a0Then the\u00a0Lord\u00a0said to me, \u201cTake again the equipment of a foolish shepherd.16\u00a0For I am going to raise up a shepherd over the land who will not care for the lost, or seek the young, or heal the injured, or feed the healthy, but will eat the meat of the choice sheep, tearing off their hooves. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=258"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":265,"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/258\/revisions\/265"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marklandbenson.org\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}