Song: You did not wait for me to draw near to you, but you clothed yourself in frail humanity. You did not wait for me to cry out to you, but you let me hear your voice calling me; and I’m forever grateful to you. I’m forever grateful for the cross. I’m forever grateful to you. That you came to seek and save the lost. 

“The stone the builders rejected has become the cornerstone (Psalms 118:22).” 

Before God created the world he wanted a world of holy people, blameless people and loving people. Knowing how humans would be, immoral, hateful, jealous, full of rage and selfish ambitions, God also made a way for his will to become possible, through grace. Jesus is the grace of God and the foundation on which salvation and redemption is built. God’s choice of grace fulfills the requirement for holiness, blamelessness and love because Jesus, God’s grace, was the holy, blameless and loving sacrifice for humanity. 

“God demonstrates his own love for us in this: (that) while we were still sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8)”. 

“As for you, you were dead in your transgressions and sins, in which you used to live when you followed the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, the spirit who is now at work in those who are disobedient. All of us also lived among them at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh (the power in opposition to the spirit of God) and following its desires and thoughts. Like the rest, we were by nature deserving of wrath, but God, who is rich in mercy made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. It is by grace you have been saved (Ephesians 2:1-5).” 

The Rock that God has chosen is the shepherd who cares.

“Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture! declares the Lord. Therefore, this is what the Lord, the God of Israel, says to the shepherds who tend my people: Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done, declares the Lord. I, myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and will bring them back to their pasture, where they will be fruitful and increase in number. I will place shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing, declares the Lord. The days are coming, declares the Lord when I will raise up from David’s line a righteous branch, a king who will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In his days Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: The LORD Our Righteous Savior. So, then the days are coming, declares the Lord, when people will no longer say, as surely as the Lord lives, who brought the Israelites up out of Egypt, but they will say, as surely as the Lord lives, who brought the descendants of Israel up out of the land of the north and out of all the countries where he had banished them. Then they will live in their own land (Jeremiah 23:1-8).” 

Although we do not live in a time of sheep herding it is not a complicated concept to understand the analogy of uncaring pastoralists or shepherds.  A shepherd is responsible for a valuable commodity. God speaks to Jeremiah, in Jeremiah 23:1-8 and is describing shepherds who do not care about or value the people placed under their care. 

God values people. His sheep are not what we would associate modern chattel to be, used for their market value. God’s kingdom is made up of people who have humility, believe in a power greater than themselves and submit to God’s ability to do what they cannot, to provide for them in a way that they cannot and to lead and direct the course and purpose of their lives in a way that they cannot. God’s people are people who have humbled themselves to understand that they have a need for spiritual leadership, and it is God who they follow. 

The warning in Jeremiah 23:1-8 is for shepherds, mothers, fathers, elders of churches, priests, pastors, teachers of God’s word and any leader who has been given the task by God, to take care of God’s people, the flock of his spiritual pasture but have instead abused their authority and have driven people away from belief in God. 

In biblical times commandments and laws were given to prophets and priests. As shepherds, God used these people to grow and develop people who were willing to know who God is, to understand him, follow his ways and to love him. However, God tells Jeremiah that many shepherds were then and are now “destroying and scattering the sheep of my pasture, they are scattering my flock, driving them away and have not bestowed care on them (Jeremiah 23:1-2)”. 

This is a word to the ministers in biblical times as well as spiritual guides today who have misrepresented who God is and have caused people, who are valuable to God, to be driven from Christianity and scattered among hateful and destructive ideologies, religious beliefs, and even wealth as their spiritual counselors. God says to Jeremiah that the fault is with uncaring shepherds. In Jeremiah 23:3, Jesus is the one who arrives as the shepherd God has chosen to care for and to bring back people who have been driven away from belief in him. 

Jesus, as the shepherd that God has chosen exemplifies the heart of God. Jeremiah 23:3 says what the heart of God is like. It is the heart of God to love, to give mercy and grace and to restore and bless people, who believe in him, to places of peace. God says that by his own power, not through leadership of any one person, he will take up this cause for his people. Whoever has been driven away from God and from knowing him, Jesus will bring back through revealing who God is, that he is not like uncaring leaders, but a God who loves and provides for his people and gives them an inheritance greater than wealth, salvation. 

Jesus is the new shepherd that will replace the old shepherds, both the old shepherds of the old covenant of law and shepherds who have used the law to drive people away (Jeremiah 23:4). These shepherds and the law require works to receive righteousness before God, under the new shepherd and his covenant, faith in Jesus is what is required. 

God has given his people a new shepherd and a new commandment to love God and to believe in Jesus; belief in Jesus is the righteousness required to have access to the kingdom of God. Anyone who is preaching condemnation is condemned themselves but whoever is preaching forgiveness and righteousness through Jesus are the shepherds who are leading with wisdom and justice and doing what is right (Jeremiah 23:5). 

The salvation that they preach to the people of God will not only bring people salvation and righteousness through Jesus but also safety. Jesus as the shepherd that God has chosen, is a shepherd who takes care of people who love him (Jeremiah 23:6). Because of his faithfulness and unending love, God has taken the responsibility back from care takers who are neglectful and incapable of caring for his people. God has taken the burden of care on himself so that no one will be lost (John 6:39-40) or disconnected from Jesus as the source of life (Jeremiah 23:7). Psalms 23:1 says, that people who are connected to God and believe in Jesus, want for nothing because he is the shepherd who is able to meet all physical, emotional and spiritual needs of his flock like a shepherd; and to gently lead (Isaiah 40:11).

Song: The name of the Lord is a strong tower the righteous run into it and they are saved.  Blessed be the name of the Lord, most high (Proverbs 18:10). 

Jesus is the shepherd who rescues his people from uncaring leaders.

“The word of the Lord came to me: Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: This is what the Sovereign Lord says: woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. You have not strengthened the weak or healed those who are ill or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals. My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them. Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, because my flock lacks a shepherd and so has been plundered and has become food for all the wild animals, and because my shepherds did not search for my flock but cared for themselves rather than for my flock, therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock. I will remove them from tending the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, and it will no longer be food for them. For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I, myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and in all the settlements in the land. I will tend them in a good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land. There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. I, myself, will tend my sheep and make them lie down, declares the Sovereign Lord. I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong, I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice (Ezekiel 34:1-16).”

In Ezekiel 34:1-16, God rebukes shepherds and leaders who have been given the task of caring for the people of God but are treating God’s people like they were actually sheep, a commodity useful only for their value to them; a tool to get wealth and status; and have allowed God’s people, his children, to wander lost and to be scattered among destructive ideologies. God says, for this reason he will do the bringing back and says in Ezekiel 34:11 “I, even I, will both search for my sheep (people) and seek them out.” 

God says to Ezekiel that those uncaring shepherds have been like having no shepherd at all and have allowed God’s people to be eaten, becoming like meat, to all the beasts of the field or in other words given to every ideology of mankind and have been scattered from the word and security of God’s counsel, blessings and inheritance (Ezekiel 34:5-16). 

God says to Ezekiel that the shepherds who herd sheep have gorged themselves on the flock. Shepherds are supposed to tend flocks for another not use them for their own benefit. But God says through Ezekiel that these shepherds have fed themselves and not the flock. God says he will deliver his people from the hand of the uncaring shepherd and from their mouths (Ezekiel 34:12). Jesus as the shepherd that God has chosen will search them out and seek them himself from every cloudy and dark place.

Jesus the shepherd that God has chosen to rescue, heal and to save.

Jesus is the shepherd that God has chosen to rescue, heal and to save, because of his love for people and stands in stark contrast to uncaring shepherds who use their status to get wealthy and use God’s word to send messages of condemnation and discord to people that drive them away from the heart of God that desires to offer mercy and forgiveness. 

Mark chapters 1 and 2 tell the account of Jesus’ power to heal and to save. In Mark 1, a man approaches Jesus, “on his knees” meaning desperate and humbled and says to Jesus, ‘if you are willing you can make me clean.’ Mark 1:41 says that Jesus gets upset at the man and says, of course ‘I am willing, be clean’; and in Mark 2, Jesus says to another man, ‘son, your sins are forgiven’ (Mark 2:5). 

The shepherds in Mark 2 get mad at Jesus for saying that he can forgive sins. They say to him that only God can do that, Jesus says, he is God (Mark 2:6). Jesus is the new shepherd who takes way the sins of the world and has been given authority by God to heal and to save (Mark 2:10-11). Jesus is the kind of shepherd who goes looking for lost people and sits and eats with them (Mark 2:17). Where self-righteous shepherds would not go, Jesus goes, not to condone the life of a person who is lost but to reveal who God is to them, in exactly the place where they are. Psalms 139 says that you cannot hide from the love of God he knows where you are, dark places cannot keep you from him, he goes to places of captivity not to sit there with you but to bring you out by his love and compassion and ability to save. 

“Does he who formed the eye not see (Psalms 94:9)?” God does not desire to see people punished for wrongdoings but desires that people turn and look to him as the source of all provision and salvation from destruction (Ezekiel 33:11). 

Ezekiel 34:2-4 says God has eyes and has seen the self-righteous shepherds whose primary concern is their wealth and status, who do not use God’s word to feed people its wisdom; and do not use its authority to heal and speak words of life (Ezekiel 34:2-4). 

Because of these uncaring shepherds God’s word says that he will be the one that heals his people of all their diseases (Psalms 103:3). These shepherds who know who God is have kept knowledge of God’s power to heal and his power to save all who are lost from the people they shepherd. 

Jesus is the shepherd that God has chosen to reveal who God is and what the heart of God is like. In Luke 15:4-7 Jesus is sharing an analogy of the heart of God and says, “Suppose one of you has a hundred sheep and loses one of them. Doesn’t he leave the ninety-nine in the open country and go after the lost sheep until he finds it? And when he finds it, he joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. Then he calls his friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me, I have found my lost sheep.’ I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who do not need to repent.” 

The leaders Jesus has chosen are shepherds who care.

Jesus is this shepherd God has sent to search, seek, feed and to heal his people. In Matthew 9:35-38 Jesus exemplifies the kind of shepherd he is and also requires of the people he chooses to shepherd his people.

“Jesus went through all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and healing every disease and illness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, ‘The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field’ (Matthew 9:35-38).”

The work of the leaders that Jesus has chosen to shepherd his people is to heal, to seek and save. These shepherds have been given the tasks to teach people that God is a healer, and able to save and deliver them from every situation. Jesus instructs the shepherds of his flocks to pray to God for more shepherds that will, “Go to the lost sheep of Israel; proclaim the message that the kingdom of heaven has come near; heal those who are ill, raise the dead, drive out demons (Matthew 10:5-8).”

Jesus tells the shepherds of his flock to be humble, that he is a great God who humbled himself to meet humanity where we are. “You know that those who are regarded as rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you, instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be slave of all (Mark10:42-44).” 

Jesus also teaches his disciples to be bold and courageous shepherds who know God because they know him. Bold in their belief of who God is and what he is capable of, of who Jesus is and the power he has given to his disciples, shepherds of his flock; and bold in their belief of who they are, like Jesus, children of God (John 8:51-59). 

Song: Joy to the world the Lord is come let earth receive her king, let every heart prepare him room and heaven and nature sing. 

This is the inheritance of heirs of the kingdom, the children of God. 

“Come all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare. Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live. I will make an everlasting covenant with you, my faithful love promised to David. See, I have made him a witness to the peoples, a ruler and commander of the peoples. Surely you will summon nations you know not, and nations you do not know will come running to you, because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, for he has endowed you with splendor. Seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near. Let the wicked forsake their ways and the unrighteous their thoughts. Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts. As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it. You will go out in joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and hills will burst into song before you, and all the trees of the field will clap their hands. Instead of the thorn-bush will grow the juniper, and instead of briers the myrtle will grow. This will be for the Lord’s renown, for an everlasting sign, that will endure forever (Isaiah 55:1-13).”

1. Provision: Because Jesus has paid the price for our salvation, children of God have access to his riches, his ability to make a way where there is no way; to provide for them when no provision is available (Isaiah 55:1).
2. Peace: The children of God have access to God’s peace, his salvation, his ability to secure your life from all destruction. More reliably than financial security, God’s security brings peace to his children more than what wealth or money can buy (Isaiah 55:2).
3. Supplier of all needs: God promises to be everything that the believer needs, savior, friend, strong tower, light, provider (Isaiah 55:3).
4. Caring leaders: God will give his children leaders who have faith in Jesus. God speaks through Isaiah that King David was an example of the kind of leadership God gives, people who have a heart after God’s own heart. King David made God his ruler, he trusted in God to save and deliver him from every situation (Isaiah 55:4).
5. Favor: God will give his children favor so that people who do not believe in Jesus, go looking to the people God has blessed for answers. God’s favor was with David and God gave him victory over all of his enemies because he trusted God to fight his battles for him and cause nations and people to recognize the power of God on his life (Isaiah 55:5).   
6. Help from the Almighty God: God will answer the cry of people who look to him for help. God promises to hear when you cry for help and to deliver, to show up for his children in his strength. “If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land (2 Chronicles 7:14).” Humility is key and looking to God as a greater power that will support you is key and your inheritance is that God will hear and answer you (Isaiah 55:6). 
7. Mercy: God’s mercy is a signature of who he is. Anyone who calls on the name of the Lord, he will answer and will be saved. God does not delight in punishing wickedness but in blessing people who look to him for answers, deliverance, salvation and provision (Isaiah 55:7).
8. God is able because he is greater. By what authority does God have to give this inheritance to his children, the sheep of his pasture? God describes in Isaiah 55:9-13 why putting your faith in him is better than trusting in yourself or in ideologies or in wealth, because the mind of God is sharper than your mind. God is able to consider more than what the human mind can comprehend. God’s wisdom and intelligence is greater. When you reach out to him for counsel and guidance you connect to the creator of all things, the one who spoke the world into existence, who is able to speak and things happen (Isaiah 55:8-9).
9. God’s faithfulness to his word. “As the rain and the snow come down from heaven, and do not return to it without watering the earth and making it bud and flourish, so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater, so is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it (Isaiah 55:10-11).” God’s words are true. What he says he will do, he will do and what he says will be. If God blesses you, you’re blessed. If God says I will provide for you without money he will do it.

Why does God provide this kind of inheritance for his children? So that they can testify about who he is just as hills and mountains, snow, rain and trees testify of how great and awesome God is, his children’s testimony of God’s faithfulness is the everlasting sign that will endure forever, so that people know that he is a faithful God, a keeper of promises. This is why he blesses his children, for his own name’s sake (Isaiah 55:12-13). 

The kind of shepherd God has chosen in Jesus, is a refuge and it is his faithfulness that keeps his people like a shield, his love that rescues and protects those who believe in him, and a savior to everyone who calls on his name. (Psalms 91:4, Psalms 91:14, Psalms 91:15)

Jesus is the shepherd that God has chosen because he is faithful. 

Genesis 37-47 tells an account of God’s faithfulness to his people and how he takes up the cause of the sheep of his pasture and cares for them. In Genesis 48:15 Jacob says of God that he is “the God who has been my shepherd all my life to this day and has delivered me from all harm.” 

Jacob is the father of the twelve tribes of Israel, the first family of God, the people he promises to shepherd. When Jacob is old he has his last two sons Joseph the 11th and Benjamin the 12th. One day, ten of Jacob’s older sons are grazing flocks away from where Jacob is and so he sends the seventeen-year-old Joseph to go and check on them (Genesis 37:12-36). While Joseph is on the way to them, they see him and conspire to kill him, because they don’t like him because Jacob favors him so much. Instead of killing him, his own brothers strip him of his clothes, throw him into a well and when some merchants traveling to Egypt pass by them, they sell him for half a pound of silver and tell Jacob his father that a ferocious animal attacked and killed him (Genesis 37:23-28). 

This is the beginning part of an account of God’s faithfulness. To Jacob, God’s plan of salvation looked like he had lost one of his sons, and because he had sent him to go looking for his brothers, Jacob felt responsible for neglecting to keep watch over one of the sons God had entrusted to him and promised to give an inheritance to. 

In Egypt Joseph becomes the slave of an officer whose wife lies on him and sends him to work in the dungeon of a prison, as a prisoner for twenty-something years (Genesis 39-40). To Joseph, God’s plan looked like he was rejected by his family and forgotten by God. 

But God’s timing is perfect. God is a faithful shepherd and able to restore to those who have faith in him more than what the dungeon years took. Joseph was working in the prison, as a prisoner-guard of prisoners. One day Pharaoh was upset at two of his officials and he sent them to prison and the warden put them under Joseph’s care. While in prison they had dreams and God revealed the interpretation of those dreams to Joseph. They were grateful and Joseph asked them, “when all goes well with you, remember me and show me kindness, mention me to Pharaoh and get me out of this prison. I was forcibly carried off from the land of the Hebrews and even here I have done nothing to deserve being put in a dungeon (Genesis 40:14-15).” Putting your trust in people for salvation is hopeless, they forget about Joseph, until one day Pharaoh has a dream that no one can interpret and Pharaoh sends for Joseph, “and he was quickly brought from the dungeon (Genesis 41:14).” 

God is able to quickly take his people from dungeon situations (Genesis 41:14) protect them from his judgement, provide for them, make them forget the years of suffering and make them fruitful in a land of suffering (Genesis 41:47-52).

God revealed the interpretation of Pharaoh’s dream to Joseph that there would be a famine in Egypt and Joseph told Pharoah that he should appoint someone to collect a fifth of all harvests in Egypt before the famine begins and store it (Genesis 41:28-52). So Pharaoh put Joseph in charge of the whole land of Egypt a position only second to Pharaoh himself (Genesis 41:41). Joseph stored up huge quantities of grain, like the sand of the sea, it was so much that he stopped keeping records because it was beyond measure (Genesis 41:49). Before the years of famine came two sons were born to Joseph, he named one “God has made me forget all of my troubles” and the second “God has made me fruitful in the land of my suffering (Genesis 41:50-52).”

Then the famine arrived and “there was a famine in all the other lands, but in the whole land of Egypt there was food. When all of Egypt began to feel the famine, the people cried to Pharaoh for food. Then Pharaoh told all the Egyptians, “go to Joseph and do what he tells you (Genesis 41:54-55).” God is able to make his favor, that rests on his people, recognizable to everyone around them, so that believers and non-believers go looking to the people God has blessed for answers and provision. 

Then, due to the harshness of the famine, Joseph’s brothers go to Egypt looking for food (Genesis 42) and Joseph is not bitter with them but marvels at the beauty of God’s plan and timing and of his faithfulness and shares this revelation with them “Joseph said to his brothers, ‘I’m your brother Joseph, the one you sold into Egypt! And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to saves lives that God sent me ahead of you. For two years now there has been famine in the land, and for the next five years there will be no ploughing and reaping. But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance. So then, it was not you who sent me here, but God. He made me father to Pharaoh, lord of his entire household and ruler of all Egypt. Now hurry back to my father and say to him, “this is what your son Joseph says: God has made me lord of all Egypt. Come down to me, don’t delay. You shall live in the region of Goshen and be near me, you, your children and grandchildren, your flocks and herds and all you have. I will provide for you because five years of famine are still to come. Otherwise, you and your household and all who belong to you will become destitute (Genesis 45:4-11).”

When Jesus, the shepherd God has chosen, leads.

When Jesus, the shepherd God has chosen, leads he leads with favor (Zechariah 11:10) and unifies all nations to himself. He brings people together to bless them through the works of his hands (Zechariah 11:16), he cares for the lost, brings health and life and prosperity to those who follow him, who put their trust in him and have faith in him. 

God’s timing is perfect and his ways and thoughts higher than our ways and our thoughts. In John 7:6-7 Jesus says to his brothers, “for you any time will do.” When Jesus, through revealing who God is, testifies about what God can do it must be in God’s timing because Jesus’ very existence testifies that the world and what it does to people is evil (John 7:6-7). So God has to prove himself and reveal who he is, what kind of God he is through his word to people, in his way and in his time, so that they will believe. 

When Jesus, the shepherd God has chosen, leads those who follow him lack nothing. He leads his flock to places of peace even in the darkest valley he watches over those he leads and provides for them in front of their enemies that want to destroy them (Psalms 23). He lets enemies watch him bless his flock. God leads his people in favor and his love and goodness is a mark on the life of those who follow him. 

God’s sheep are people, his children whom he loves. 

Jesus reveals the love God has for people in Mark 10:13-16, “People were bringing little children to Jesus for him to place his hands on them, but the disciples rebuked them. When Jesus saw this, he was indignant. He said to them, ‘Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these. Truly I tell you, anyone who will not receive the kingdom of God like a little child will never enter it.’ And Jesus took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.”

Jesus says his sheep are like children who love, follow and obey him, then he says, “how hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the kingdom of God (Mark 10:23).” Then his disciples say to him, but then how can anyone be saved? “Jesus looked at them and said, trust in God, “with man this is impossible, but not with God, all things are possible with God (Mark 10:27).”

Prayer: Jesus, I know that you are a God who cares, I submit to your ability to do what I cannot and ask for your help to restore your people who are lost back to you. Jesus, forgive our uncaring leaders who have abused their authority and have driven people away from you and remove them as spiritual leaders of your people and put in their place shepherds who will teach your people about the truth of who you are, who will work for your kingdom’s purpose to seek the lost and bring them into your kingdom. I thank you Jesus that you are the one God has sent to shepherd your people, to care for us and to bring back people who have been driven away. I know that your heart is to love and to show your great mercy to people, to restore us and to bless us. Your word says that whoever has been driven away from knowing you, you will bring back through revealing who God is. I pray that you would raise up leaders willing to do the work that you require who will seek, heal and point to you as the one who saves. Continue to bring people closer to you, I pray like Hezekiah prayed for all of God’s people in 2 Chronicles 30:6-9, “People of God, return to the Lord, that he may return to you. Do not be like your parents and your fellow (believers) who were unfaithful to the Lord, the God of their ancestors, so that he made them an object of horror. Do not be stiff-necked, as your ancestors were; submit to the Lord. Come to his sanctuary and serve the Lord your God so that his fierce anger will turn away from you. If you return to the Lord, your fellow (believers) and your children will be shown compassion by their captors for the Lord your God is gracious and compassionate. He will not turn his face from you if you return to him.”