The Great Need for Shepherds After God’s Own Heart

The Great Need for Shepherds After God’s Own Heart

Zac Poonen

"Lord! Help! Godly men are fast disappearing. Where in all
the world can dependable men be found? Everyone deceives and
flatters and lies. There is no sincerity left" (Psalm 12:1 - Living).
The state of affairs described in this verse is an apt
description of Christendom today. We find nowadays that
even believers who were once pursuing after godliness have
started indulging in deception, flattery and lies - to serve
their own ends. Sincerity is what God seeks from all of us
first of all. We may have a thousand and one faults and make
an equal number of mistakes. But if we are sincere, God can
do miracles with our lives.

In Matthew 16:3, Jesus rebuked the Pharisees by asking them
a question: "Do you know how to discern the appearance of
the sky, but cannot discern the signs of the times?" If we
do not read the signs of the times in which we are living
now, Jesus will have to rebuke us exactly as He did the
Pharisees. When people know the Bible but don't know God
Himself, they can easily be deceived - for every cult in the
world uses the Bible as its textbook and have their proof
texts to promote their peculiar doctrines. This is why so
many cults have mushroomed around the world in this century
and become fashionable and acceptable to many people. Even
believers are being led astray and are losing their
salvation. Under the new covenant, God wants every child of
His to know Him personally (Heb.8:11), unlike as in old
covenant times, when only the prophet (who rarely appeared)
could know God personally. In fact, the new-covenant child
of God can know God better and in a more personal way than
the greatest prophet under the old covenant. Jesus said so,
very specifically (Matt.11:11). There are very few
believers who have a passion to know God Himself. Most of
them seem to be keen only on increasing in Bible-knowledge
and on having spectacular emotional experiences.

All this is an indication that we have come to the very last
minutes of the last hour of the last days in which Paul said
it would be "difficult to be a Christian" (2 Tim.3:1 - Living).
It will be difficult to be a Christian in the last days,
not because of persecution or opposition, but because
many people would "have a form of godliness without its
inner power" (2 Tim.3:5). In other words they would major on
correctness of New Testament pattern and doctrine but would
not be interested in personal devotion to Christ or in
practical godliness.

Most of us who left dead denominations in the past, left
them because we were searching for spiritual reality. We may
have begun our search in earnest. But Satan is very smart to
sidetrack believers into something cultistic, like the cult
of the Pharisees in Jesus' time.

The history of Israel has been given us at such length in
the Old Testament to teach us some important lessons. A wise
man will learn from that history the way men pleased God and
the way many displeased Him.

In Jeremiah 3:14,15, the Lord promises saying, "I will take
you one from a city and two from a family and I will bring
you to Zion. Then I will give you shepherds after My own
heart, who will feed you on knowledge and understanding."
"Zion" represents the true church of the living God. God
brings one from a city and two from a family into His
"Zion". And when we have come to this Zion - the church that
the Lord is building - He promises to give us there
"shepherds after His own heart", who will feed us on a
knowledge of Himself (and not just a knowledge of the Bible)
and on understanding of His ways (and not just an
understanding of doctrine). One primary identifying mark of
the true church of God is this: It has shepherds after God's
own heart. God is love - and the primary characteristic of
love is that it does not seek its own. So, shepherds after
God's own heart are those who do not seek their own. Such
shepherds will not seek for anyone's money or honour. They
will seek neither to please men nor to impress them. Instead
they will seek to build up the believers in order "to
present them perfect in Christ" (Col.1:28). Wherever God can
find a man with such a longing - in any town or village of
the world - He will build His church.

On the other hand, we have seen many cases of believers who
leave the mainline denominations and who seek to follow
"the New Testament pattern", who have their doctrines all
correct, but who love money and seek their own, and who yet
imagine that they are building the Body of Christ. Confusion
and chaos are always the result of their labours and what is
finally built through their labours is always Babylon.

Only where God can find a man who does not seek his own,
can the Lord build His true church. One man like that, who
shares the concern of God's heart for people, is far more
valuable to God than a thousand believers who seek their
own. To be a shepherd after God's own heart will involve
sacrifice, inconvenience, and suffering. It will mean being
willing to suffer misunderstanding, opposition, ridicule and
slander joyfully. And if such a shepherd is blessed enough
to have a wife who also does not seek her own, so that their
home is open for the Lord to do whatever He wants, then
there will be no limit to what God can do through their lives.

I am not talking now about gathering many people. Numbers
are not a mark of God's blessing. Many of the well-known
cults gather more numbers of people than anyone else. That
does not prove anything. I am talking now of quality - the
building of the Body of Christ, where every individual
member comes into a personal knowledge of God. Without such
a development, any group will only be a place where one
blind man has led a whole lot of other blind people into the
ditch. All their prayer meetings will be in the ditch, their
Bible-studies will be in the ditch and their conferences
will be in the ditch too!!

In Jesus' time, He looked around and saw that people were
like sheep without a shepherd. It is the same today. The
great need everywhere is for shepherds after God's own
heart. I am not talking here about just being an elder in a
church. No. A large church needs many shepherds - those who
have a heart that cares for God's people. Such people may
not be elders at all. But they will feed and encourage the
sheep - serving them gladly.
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