Scientists say that there are around 170 billion galaxies in the universe. There are around 100 billion stars in each galaxy. This would equal to 1 billion trillion stars! Each star is bigger than our sun, which is a relatively small star. The Milky Way has an estimated 400 billion stars. The size, distance, and power are mind-boggling!
When we take a walk at night and look up at the stars, we are actually looking back in time. Vega is one of the nearest stars, at 25 light years away. The light from Vega started its journey 25 years ago for us to be able to see it tonight.
While the earth is orbiting around the sun, the Sun itself is orbiting around the Milky Way, which takes 225 million years to complete.
Carl Sagan says, “The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, and the carbon in our apple pies were made in the interiors of collapsing stars. We are made of starstuff.”
Our brains are remarkably complex objects with a hundred billion neurons, a quadrillion connections, and we still know very little about how this organic super computer operates. But we do know the human brain is the most complicated thing we have yet discovered. It gives us the power to form language and culture, consciousness, the idea of self, the ability to learn, and understand the universe, and reflect on our place within it. We even have an inbuilt “model of gravity“, which is pretty useful.
David was a shepherd, watching over his sheep in the pastures at night. He had plenty of time to observe the stars. Maybe this is why he was such a humble man, and full of praise and thanksgiving to Jehovah God. He spent a lot of alone time with God, and talked to Him and sang to Him from his heart. God called David a man after His own heart. (I Samuel 13:14)
David sang Psalm 8 unto His God. “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.” “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars, which you have set in place, what is man that you are mindful of him, and the son of man that you care for him?” “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”
David looked at his sheep, and he looked at the billions of stars in the heavens, and he wrote: “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He makes me lie down in green pastures. He leads me besides the still waters. He restores my soul. He leads me in the path of righteousness for His name’s sake. Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me. You prepare a table before me in the presence of mine enemies; you anoint mine head with oil; my cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” (Psalm 23:1-1-6)
David realized how small he was in comparison to the vastness of the universe. He realized that he was just like his sheep, and that God was his shepherd. Jesus called Himself the Good Shepherd because He was the Father dwelling in flesh among mankind.
No wonder Jesus said that each of our hairs are numbered! If He can count the stars and call them by name, if He can know the names of His innumerable angels, if He can keep the universe running smoothly until it is time to create it anew, if He can know the purpose of the billions upon billions of micro-organisms in each handful of dirt, then He can surely know each member of our bodies and how He fashioned it in the womb!
God created us because He loves us. He created us to have fellowship with Him. He loves us so much that when we go astray He sends His own Son to pay the penalty for each of our sins. He laid down His life for us, and shed His Blood for us, that we might be able to converse with Him and feel His love via His Holy Spirit in our inner man.
Isaiah 53:6 says, “All we like sheep have gone astray, we have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.”
Sheep do not take care of themselves. They require endless attention and care. Jesus, as the Good Shepherd, is ever making intercession for us, guiding us, convicting us of right and wrong, and protecting us.
David knew his sheep by name. Each sheep knew the voice of David. Each sheep was ‘marked’ so that all knew who the sheep belonged to. A sharp knife was used to notch the ear of each sheep, on a wooden block. There was pain involved for both the shepherd and the sheep. It was a lifelong mark that could not be erased, a mark of ownership for all to see.
It is interesting that the Old Testament has a story of a slave in Hebrew households who chose to become a lifetime member of that home. His master or owner would take him to his door, put his ear lobe against the door post and with an awl, make a puncture through the ear lobe. From then on that man or woman was marked as belonging to that house as a ‘love slave’.
Jesus stated very strongly that “If any man would be my disciple, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.”
There is a price to pay for following Jesus Christ. If we expect Him to be our Good Shepherd, then we must be willing to deny ourselves our fickle and foolish ways of living for ourselves.
Jesus knows us by name. We know His voice. But if we are self-willed, stubborn, never responding to His voice convicting us of right and wrong, then we will never know the joy of His love for us, we will never experience His peace in our hearts, we will never lie down and rest by refreshing waters in green meadows, and we will never feel fulfilled and satisfied in this life, because He is always having to correct us and discipline us to bring us back to His fold.
Jesus says this about those who overcome this flesh and this world:
- They will have right to the Tree of Life in the New Jerusalem
- They will rule with Him over the nations of the world
- They will receive a Crown of Life
- They will be clothed with white garments
- They will never have their name blotted out of the Book of Life
- Their names He will confess before His Father
- They will be given a white stone with a ‘New Name’ written on it that only the recipient will know
Many Christians around the world are dying for their faith in Jesus Christ as the Son of God. Torture, crucifixion, and beheadings all leave a mark that tell all they belong to the Great Shepherd of their souls.
Paul said he bore in his body the marks of Jesus.
Can you say that you have been marked for God? Can you cry out from your soul, “The Lord is ‘MY” shepherd?!