When I write it's because I want to change myself, my family to become more cohesive, or I desire a stronger church, I want others to be in God's will or I want to see more people saved! These ideas are noble, but seldom achieved! Even when I am changed, pride increases, and I'm not sure that overall I'm any more what God wants me to be.
I get disheartened when even I fail to become more Christlike. How can I expect change in my family, church and others if I can't change for the positive myself? It's discouraging when paragraph after paragraph nothing changes! Imagine how the preacher feels!
Preachers are called to tell others about Jesus. However, he's not a historian. Telling others about Jesus has a noble purpose! It's so that people can be saved! That seldom happens for various reasons, chief among them is that those who need to hear the preaching aren't there to hear it. Preachers get tired of "preaching to the choir". It's discouraging for them!
The preacher's mission is to take ravenous wolves and change them into sheep. He's merely the shepherd who watches over them while God does the transformation. The preacher grooms them and tells them about greener pastures, but it's God who provides the greener pastures. Wolves just won't come and sit there with the shepherd. They prefer chasing in the wild and eating sheep! Sinners are just like the wolves.
After a time the shepherd's flock gets smaller. Some stray off and some die. The lambs born into the flock see the wolf cubs chasing tale and want to join the fun. Lambs drift off into wolf land and are eaten alive. Many become lambs in wolves clothing, so to speak!
Before the shepherd retires, the flock is all, but gone. He still tells them of greener pastures, but the pasture where they now graze is satisfying. They have more grass than they desire and do little to share it with those gone astray. They know that wolves don't eat grass, so why bother? The shepherd gets discouraged!
Preachers are the shepherd. The church is just as the flock and the world the wolves. The children of Christians are the lambs who are gone astray or are eaten by wolves, some wearing sheep's clothing, but oftentimes the lambs just want to be wolves too! The preacher gets discouraged!
A discouraged preacher can't be ineffective. The devil uses discouragement to his advantage. A shepherd who's worried that his shepherd skills are ineffective is self-absorbed. How can he persuade others when there is little joy for him. His vocation is his life and the job is empty. Few sheep go to the water and many sheep move on to sweeter streams.
Megapastures, not only offer greener grass and sweeter streams, but they have attendants with fife and drum. Rather than harmony in psalms they have worldly tunes and drumbeats to drive the lambs. The flock has moved to greener pastures where magnifying The Great Shepherd loses out to pampering the flock. The shepherd with the diminished old flock feels more dejected!
Now think on God! He populated this earth so that his creation would commune with him, love him and honor him! That's why we're here! Immediately, his first two lambs ran off with the wolf (in serpent's clothing, no less). Adam and Eve wanted a megapasture with greener grass and more pleasure, although the pasture they already had was the greenest of all! Think how God felt!
Consider God now. Nothing has changed. Oh, it's gotten worse with time. Most of his lambs have become real wolves. Most people eat the flesh and mostly from rotting animals. Not physically rotten, but a rotten stench coming from within. A odorous ketosis from the empty soul. God gets discouraged. He went into this knowing in advance that he would be rejected. However, he valued even the few who would love and honor him! It was worth it! God loves us all in spite of the wild canine desires that we have.
How much does God love us? Think of the value of the Lamb. He was the most prime Lamb without blemish. The firstborn and God's pride and joy! God voluntarily allowed that Lamb to be sacrificed in our place, although we're the evil lambs, even wolves! After the sacrifice, most still reject the Good Shepherd in favor of megapleasure. Satan runs that pasture and although the grass is bare, people flock there because that's where the pleasure lies. They don't worry about the withering grass and the oncoming drought. The grass will become stubble and burn up, but lost lambs still eat at the contaminated stream because it has deception flowing in it.
God too is discouraged. He has he right to be! Even his mature sheep are eating tainted grass. There is a gate to a permanent pasture right there in front of all the sheep. The wolves can take it too! They can't see the gate because it's narrow. Few will take it because there are requirements to enter through the gate. That ravenous appetite for the flesh must be quenched by the Spirit of love. All the wolves and lost sheep must allow themselves to be tamed and submit to the Great Shepherd. They are to become the sacrifice it takes to enter in. Few take it. God is discouraged, but is elated when even one sheep enters in!
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