You have not strengthened the weak or healed the sick or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. – Ezekiel 34:4
Today’s Scripture Reading (November 10, 2009): Ezekiel 34
I have a leadership meeting tonight. Sometimes it is so easy to be busy doing the ministry – in our case planting a new church – and lose sight of what we are supposed to be doing. So tomorrow is a time when we just need to make sure that what we are busy at is accomplishing what we are supposed to be doing. Being busy isn’t enough. It also isn’t about what we can do alone. The job is too big for anyone of us – it is the team that is important.
So as Ezekiel outlines the job of the Shepherd – it is too big a job to be accomplished by one person. But it still needed to be accomplished. If it wasn’t, then a nation would be lost. In Ezekiel’s reality, the shepherd’s had already failed and the people were in trouble.
The Shepherd’s job – according to Ezekiel it was to speak encouragement, to be a healing influence on the hurting and to seek the lost. It was and is not an option – but the job description that we are called to. So – how are we doing?
I have to admit that the hardest part of the job description is to be encouraging. It is so easy to be negative rather than encouraging – so easy to wish that the weak were stronger rather than taking steps to make sure that they become strong. One thing I want my leadership team to understand is that we are in the job developing leaders – not trying to steal established leaders from other organizations.
The sheep need us to lead with everything that God has given to us. I hope that we are ready to do it. And that we will truly do everything by team.
Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Ezekiel 35
