SHEEP GONE ASTRAY!

“I have gone astray like a lost sheep; seek your servant, for I do not forget your commandments” (Psalm 119:176).

Once, a brother was introduced to me with these words. “This person is capable of jumping from one body to another.” I have read such things only in the fantasy tales of Vikramaditya. In these fictions, though it is an ordinary man who has learnt such tricks, he can get into a dead deer and make it alive. The imagination of the stories goes this way. This is what made people introduce him saying, ‘one to jump from one body to another.’

But do you know the actual reason for that man to get introduced that way? He will seek help and recommendations from influential persons and with that will secure high-level placements. But the nature of touchiness within him will compel him to come out of that position within a weak. Again he will make attempts to acquire new position and that too will last only for a weak. At last, everybody knew what sort of person he was and nobody was prepared to accept him. Thus he became jobless and his family was toiling in hunger and poverty. What a pathetic situation! 

In the Spiritual life too, if your mind wavered here and there, satan will cheat you and you will slide down being unable to stand firm in the high position where God had placed you. 

Look at the life of Saul who was the first king of Israel. He who went in search of his donkeys was loved and chosen by God and was anointed as the king of Israel. But what did he do? He did not pay heed to the Word of God and instead went towards the livestock of the Amalekites. Saul had reserved the best of the sheep, the oxen, the fatlings, the lambs and all that was good for his purpose. Instead of accepting the huge palace, royal position, status and the greatness given by God, he placed his preference on the cattle and thus he slid and fell. 

Dear children of God, you have wonderful Redeemer and Saviour. He has provided you with Spiritual greatness and high positions. He also has filled you with the blessings of the Most High. Will you abide in Him? Isaiah the Prophet says, “...the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).

As mankind migrated from the holiness to sins, God descended from heaven to the earth to redeem the greatness and glory which the man had lost. He willed to redeem that greatness and glory and to adopt mankind again. Dear children of God, will you abide in His love forever? 

To meditate: “For you were like sheep going astray, but have now returned to the Shepherd and overseer of your souls” (I Peter 2:25).