Wandering Sheep! Restoring
Shepherd
Isaiah 53:6; Luke 19:10
The great men
and women of God mentioned in the Bible and in the history of Christendom were
prone to wander and committed serious sin against God. Despite their weakness
and shortcoming God out of His love and mercy brought them back to His fold and
glorified His name through them. We too tend to wander and often run away from
God. Therefore we are often compared to sheep in the Bible, in Psalms 23
we read about the relationship between the sheep and Shepherd. Psalms 100
says that we are the sheep of His pasture. We are compared to sheep because we
are so much like sheep that tend to wander and go astray and go on our own way (Isaiah
53:6). It is common for the wandering sheep to fell prey at the mouths of
wild animals. Likewise we too invite spiritual disaster by wandering away from
Jesus our true shepherd that would ultimately result in eternal damnation. However
there is a “Hope of Restoration” for every wandering sheep that which is
willing to yield and to obey the tender voice of the Shepherd.
Many years ago, a man by the name of
Robert Robinson was riding in a stagecoach.
Another passenger in the coach was humming a verse of the hymn “Come
Thou Fount Of Every Blessing.” She
asked Robinson what he thought of the hymn she was humming. His answer was a
strange one. He said, “Madam, I am
the poor unhappy man who wrote that hymn many years ago, and I would give a
thousand worlds, if I had them, to enjoy the feelings I had then.” In 1743,
when Robert Robinson was just eight years old, he lost his father. The fatherless
Robert became unruly and indulged in gambling and drinking. God saved him through
George Whitefield. He then had become a preacher in the Methodist church. At
the age of 22, he wrote the song “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing,” to
express his joy that he found in his new faith and to complement his sermon at the Calvinist Methodist Chapel in Norfolk, England. Robert
encountered circumstances that which made him to wander from the Lord and
forced him to join Unitarian Church that which deliberately denies the deity of Jesus
Christ. However God according to His divine will restored this wanderer back
into His fold through the hope filled words “the streams of mercy are
still flowing” uttered by his co – passenger in a stagecoach. If the sheep tend to wander then it
is Shepherd’s nature to restore the wandering sheep back into His fold. In
Psalms 23 verse 3 we read that Lord restores the sheep that strays. The word “restores” means ''to bring back, to
turn back, to draw back.'' Luke chapter 15 is called “God’s lost and found
department”. Jesus our loving Shepherd cares for every one of us. He
is the Good Shepherd who goes out to look for every wandering sheep and rejoices
when he can bring them back to the faith.
St. Augustine
was born at Tagaste (modern Algeria) in Africa.
His father was a pagan who became Christian on his death bed. His mother
Monica was a devout Christian. Thus he had an opportunity to have a Christian
upbringing. Though he was brought up in
Christian atmosphere, his sins of impurity and his pride prevented him from
knowing the divine truth anymore. His mother’s incessant prayer and the preaching
of St. Ambrose paved the way to his repentance. Yet his philosophical thinking
made him to believe that he could never live a pure life. The distressed Augustine
cried to his friend Alipius "Unlearned people are taking Heaven by force,
but we, the learned are wallowing in the mud of our sins!" One day full of
bitter sorrow, Augustine flung himself out into the garden and cried out to
God, "How long more, O Lord? Why does not this hour put an end to my
sins?" God answered his prayers and prompted him to read one of Apostle
Paul’s letters in which he exhorted believers to put away all impurity and to
live in imitation of Jesus. That did it! From then on, Augustine began a new
life and was baptized on Easter Eve 387 A.D... Dear friends, if any one of you feels
that you have slipped away from the faith then turn back and allow the Good
Shepherd to find you. We begin to find
life only when we come back to our Heavenly Father. It is never too late to
repent and to return to the fold.
Your in His Service
G. Paul Raj
