The Key To Accepting Jesus As Our Shepherd

“My sheep hear my voice, says the Lord; I know them and they follow me.” John 10:27

Let's focus today on spiritual leadership. The prophet Jeremiah issues a warning to those spiritual leaders who would mislead, scatter, and fail to care for God’s people. Jeremiah was a prophet in Israel 600 years before Jesus was born, but this problem of spiritual leaders who lead their people astray has persisted throughout time. Just look at our Christian faith. Even though the Catholic Church has remained One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic for almost 2000 years, over 40,000 Christian denominations have splintered off, each teaching and preaching a different version of the Gospel of Jesus.  

Jesus started a church, the Catholic Church, and selected and sent Apostles to spread the faith throughout the earth, but why has this splintering of the faith occurred? In large part, because of leaders who have led people astray and have spread their own version of the teachings of Jesus and the Apostles.  

A good personal example of this is the church my grandmother belonged to (she was a member of the Church of Christ). When I was growing up, the small church she attended on the west side of Fort Worth split three times in about a ten-to-fifteen-year period. Unlike the Catholic Church, in much of the Protestant world there is no central authority to guide either the leaders or the people in a common faith. That being the case, there are often disputes about the faith inside individual churches, like my grandmother’s. Oftentimes, the disagreement would be over the interpretation by the pastor of a verse or passage in the scriptures. If enough people in the church couldn’t come to an agreement with the pastor on the interpretation of the scripture, those who disagreed would leave the church, purchase a building, hire a pastor they did agree with, and start a new Church of Christ. This happens all the time.

Reflecting on this topic of spiritual leadership encourages us to ask ourselves questions that have a major impact on our life not only in the here and now but mostly importantly in eternity.  Questions like:
 
Who really is my Shepherd? Is it Jesus or something or someone else?
 
Who do I follow in my daily life, the Lord or the world?

Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow me.”

Are the decisions I make, in all aspects of my life, based on the teachings of Jesus and his Church or of the culture and my own self-centered desires? Do I even know my faith well enough to recognize the difference?
 
Do I spent time listening for the quiet voice of God to help direct my life or do I allow the noise of the world to drown him out? 

Do I even know the voice of God when I hear it, and if so, do I trust God enough to follow him, or do I freely choose to follow things opposed to him?

These questions and many others are the types of questions we must ask ourselves if we truly want Jesus to be our shepherd and follow him. In this world, there will be opposition to us following Jesus. Jesus himself tell us this the in the Gospel of John where he said, “In this world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world.”  
  
So, if Jesus is our leader, if Jesus is our shepherd, if Jesus has conquered the world, why do we find it so hard to follow him? Why do we try to push him away at times when we know that as God, he can only love us and lead us to what is good, wholesome, and holy. When facing the difficulties, struggles, and temptations of life we must remember that Jesus can’t, won’t, and never will lead us to sin. So why is it so hard for us to surrender to his love and give ourselves to him, body, mind and soul? Why do we resist and often reject the love of God, especially in the times we need him most?  

Ok, I’m going to give you an answer to this question, but you might not like it. If this touches a wound or strikes a nerve, don’t feel like you’re being singled out because every one of us is either in this place right now or have been there and fight every day not to go back. 

The answer to the question of why we resist allowing Jesus to be the focus of our life, our leader, and our shepherd:

We don’t know him. We don’t have a relationship with him. 

We don’t know Jesus. 

Yes, we might have the knowledge of Jesus in our head, but it’s not yet settled in our heart, so we really don’t know and trust the Shepherd. We may even push him away because, deep down inside, we believe that instead of sharing his life with us, protecting us, and leading us to happiness and holiness, that Jesus would impose harsh standards and requirements on us that would take our freedom and joy. This is a lie and deception of the devil!    

Think about it. Jesus Christ is the King of the Universe, the son of God, the second person of the most Holy Trinity, our Lord and Savior who died for us, shares his life with us, and gives us the opportunity to be with him for eternity in heaven. Why would he ever do anything that would harm or limit us? He loves us, and through baptism, we became part of his family.    

Jesus said, “My sheep hear my voice, I know them and they follow me.” Jesus also said, “Not everyone who says to me, “Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father,”  Matthew 7:21. Wouldn’t it be terrible if we passed from this life to the next (after living a life where we truly never made Jesus a priority) and instead of embracing us Jesus said, “I never knew you. Depart from me, you evildoer,” Matthew 7:23.

Jesus Christ, God himself, wants to have a close, personal relationship with us. Our baptism established our relationship with Jesus. But how do we foster its growth? How we get to know Jesus? How do we enter into a strong personal relationship with Jesus, knowing him, loving him, and serving him, not just in our head, not just by going through the motions in our faith, but by truly knowing him in our heart.
  
The short answer is by spending time a lot with him just as we would to build a relationship with any person we are interested in, care about, or love. But from a practical sense, what does spending time with Jesus look like? What exactly can we do every day to grow consistently closer to the Lord? When I started diaconate formation, this was the very first thing they talked to us about on the very first day of class. They told us that over the next five years, we will be challenged both intellectually and spiritually, but that the most important aspect of our formation would be growing in our relationship with Jesus.  

As men entering into diaconate formation, you would expect that we would already have a great relationship with Jesus. However, our formators, rightly so, did not assume this and emphasized to us that no matter where we were in our relationship with Jesus, growing in that relationship during diaconate formation was not optional, but essential. They reminded us that we can’t give someone something that we don’t have. We learned that as deacons, if we didn’t have a strong and growing relationship with Jesus, how in the world could we help others grow in their relationship with the Lord? So here are the practical things they asked us to do every day to grow in our relationship with Jesus.  

They asked us to: 

1. attend Mass daily, 
2. pray the rosary daily, 
3. do in depth scripture study daily, 
4. do morning and evening prayer in the Liturgy of the Hours daily, 
5. and to do a holy hour in Adoration daily with at least half of that time being in silence. 

In addition, they asked that we go to Confession at least monthly but recommended that we go every two to three weeks. They also made it clear to us that these practices should never become spiritual boxes that we checked every day but should become a way of life.  

Upon hearing this, I think all of us were overwhelmed, wondering what we had gotten ourselves into. I mean, how could you do all this and hold down a full-time job? We’re talking about two to three hours a day in prayer. I call them my “Spiritual Exercises” and since that time have tried to make them a part of my life every day. Yes, I often fail to fully complete my “Spiritual Exercises,” but this ideal is what I strive for.  

Over the last few years, spending this time with Jesus daily has truly changed me. My wife has noticed it more than I have. It can be compared to how spending time in the sun changes your skin color. Spending time in the presence of the Son of God changes you as well, but from the inside out. Spending time with Jesus changes your heart. Our diaconate formators understood that it would take time before we would be able to consistently do these things but emphasized that in essence all they were asking us to do was spend a lot of time with Jesus and that this would be the key to any future success we would have as deacons.

Of course, I am not saying that this is what every Catholic should be doing every day and the Church does not require this of us. What I am saying that it is possible! The Lord knows where each one of us is in our relationship with him right now. He just wants us to continue to grow closer to him, and through the church, he gives us every opportunity to do so. He even provides us with priests, deacons, sisters, lay leaders, and a wide variety of parish ministries to help keep us on the narrow path following our shepherd Jesus.  

Brother and sisters, if Jesus is not currently the most important person in your life, start changing that today. While we are all called to serve him in different ways, he doesn’t want just a little of us, he wants all of us! While being at church for Mass each weekend is great, Jesus has so much more to give us. Just start spending a little more time with Jesus every day. A good place to start this journey in strengthening our relationship with Jesus is in Confession where we can get that heavy load off our back and repair and renew our relationship with the Lord.  

Then we should pray and ask Jesus where he wants you to go from there. Now, you can pray anywhere, you can talk to God anywhere, but the best place to talk to Jesus is here in every Catholic church where he is fully present, body, blood, soul, and divinity. Just come and sit with him and ask him to give you the first step to moving closer to him. In fact, just taking the time to come and sit with Jesus is the first step, and it’s a big step.    

Jesus is waiting. Don’t be late. Amen!