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7 PERILS OF THE SHEEP

What can harm believers and followers? God likens them to sheep, creatures that are very vulnerable to certain dangers and snares that can cripple them permanently or destroy them completely. What we see in the natural happens in the spiritual. Yet, even though called to be harmless as sheep and doves, they are also called to be wise as serpents, to be able to avert or overcome these perils themselves by first identifying them and then averting them or dealing with them.

This "sheep" aspect of believers and followers represents their vulnerability to attacks and their obedience to their shepherds to survive healthily. This article also serves as a checklist for shepherds to identify the reasons why ministry sheepfolds are wrecked up and sheep devoured. Leaders need to acquire a skillful knowledge of them and be keenly alerted to them if they want to maintain healthy and growing ministries. 

  1. FOOT ROT = Walk Of Life
    - making wrong decisions
    - going wrong places
    - doing wrong things
    - rot after doing many times
    - no regular cleansing
    - presumptuous
    - no repentance
    - disease spreads, walk crippled, pain, stuck, slows down and even dies
    Consider your directions, regular haunts, habits and even your thoughts, and it's never too late to turn around.
          
  2. INTESTINAL TROUBLE = What Goes In
    - what you listen or see and believe, wrong stuff causes stomach digestive troubles
    - unclean food - bad media - movies, novels, books, addictive, keep wanting more
    - wrong theology, faithless talk, lifeless "truths", deception 
    - even clean food - over nourished by always taking in but never giving out - indigestion
    - too much self-confident management books, must have correct diet
    - general knowledge and specialization are good - practical and realistic but not unbelieving
    - lose spiritual appetite and starve to death spiritually
    Consider what goes into you.
      
  3. SORE MOUTH = What Comes Out
    - what you talk
    - how you talk
    Consider what comes out of you.
         
  4. FATNESS = Self Gain Only
    - eat and eat with no output, give me, give me - selfish
    - always receiving and never giving love and things, until very fat and clumsy,
    - when fallen down, cannot stand up - slothful and high dependence on others
    - if not dealt with, can easily get sluggish and stagnant
    Self gain is ultimately big losses.
              
  5. FLY BLOWN = Hurts And Bruises
    - hurts sustained, scratches, bruises of life, deliberate or accidental
    - when what God does to you seem "unfairness"
    - what others, leaders, peers, followers do to you
    - flies - spirits stay on these wounds and cause them to develop into chronic diseases
    Harboring hurts and bitterness is sin and destruction.
      
  6. STRAYING OFF = Missing Focus
    - individualism, pride, arrogance, self-confidence
    - stubborn, self-willed, disobedient, curious
    - attracted by other things, wander off, lost
    Stay focused and stay in tune or you may lose everything.
      
  7. CALAMITIES = Attacks And Disasters
    - wolves and other predators, natural disasters
    - linger behind, slow in following
    - not alert to what is happening, indifference
    - does not stay under protection and instructions of shepherds who can see what's ahead
    Obedience and trust, the way to avoid or overcome predators and calamities.
      

Click here Red_Small_Right.gif (871 bytes) THE WAY OF FEROCIOUS WOLVES
Read also Red_Small_Right.gif (871 bytes) SUBDUING FEROCIOUS WOLVES.

RESTORATION OF BIBLICAL PATRIARCHY

HEBRAIC ROOTS OF CHRISTIANITY

Copyright © Israel CS Lim, Mar 1999

 

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