Delores Topliff

John 10:7-11

⁷ Jesus said again, “Very truly I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. ⁸ All who have come before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep have not listened to them. ⁹ I am the gate; whoever enters through me will be saved. They will come in and go out, and find pasture. ¹⁰ The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. ¹¹ I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.”

I don’t have a photo from that special day except this that I found online. On my first trip to Israel in 1984, the Lord connected me to a network of friends that opened many opportunities for me. For volunteering to assemble lecture papers and paint benches for Biblical Resources Learning Institute then between Gilo and Bethlehem, I was included on several unforgettable day trips. On the north side of the road midway between Jerusalem and Jericho, our guide led us through a dry field to a stone corral. It had thorn brush piled high above its walls to keep out foxes and other predators, but no gate. We asked our guide why the gate was missing. He had us offer several guesses and then he gave this answer.

“The shepherd folds his own body into that space each night to close the opening and protect his sheep. He sleeps there or fights there as the need may be.”

Those words still give me chills. Some Bible versions translate the term door instead of gate, but in Strong’s Concordance entry #2374 its meaning is the same:

1. a door
   1a) the vestibule
   1b) used of any opening like a door, an entrance, way or passage into the door through which sheep go in and out.

How blessed we are that our good shepherd interposes his own self between us and all harm. All we have to do is stay near him and graze, and drink, and then rest where He guides us. Many other scriptures speak of our shepherd leading and caring for us, but those of the shepherd protecting us with his life mean the most to me. May they also bless you today and every day.