Other Sheep

Jesus said in John 10:16: “And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice; and there shall be one fold, and one shepherd.” The word other here means of the same exact quality. You have a right hand; your left hand is your other hand—it is of the same quality, a mirror image. Your left cheek is a mirror image of your right cheek; it is your other cheek.

When Jesus said that he had other sheep, he was at that time talking to Peter, James, and John. He was saying that there would be other disciples that he would call forth out of the heathen nations that would be of the same quality of these men that turned their world upside down! This would be possible because he had promised to baptize those that would believe with the Comforter: “And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever” (John 14:16). We that believe in Christ are of the same quality as Peter, James, and John; we have been washed in the same Blood that they were, and are filled with the same Spirit they were filled with!

This being true, there is something else that we must see: There are many other sheep that are as of this moment still within the clutches of the evil one. When Jesus looked on the multitudes he saw them as “sheep that had no shepherd.” Jeremiah saw them as “scattered sheep” whereas Ezekiel saw “wounded sheep in the dark and cloudy day.” What the world, and most of the church, sees as ruined and hopeless lives, Jesus sees as choice servants. His love for these broken lives is immeasurable: Do you think he is going to set by and do nothing, that he is going to sit idly by as the devil rapes and plunders his very heart? Does he not live in us? How then can we sit and do nothing?

It is time to “arise and be doing.” It is time to seek the Lord: “Thus saith the Lord GOD; I will yet for this be inquired of by the house of Israel, to do it for them; I will increase them with men like a flock. As the holy flock, as the flock of Jerusalem in her solemn feasts; so shall the waste cities be filled with flocks of men: and they shall know that I am the Lord” (Ezekiel 36:37-38). The flock he is talking about is the sheep that flooded the streets of Jerusalem during the feasts of Israel—the Passover, Pentecost etc. The picture is that of a living sacrifice,he is showing us the quality of those he is fixing to save. God is saying, “Go and build my house by specifically asking me to add to my church daily. I will birth into my Kingdom men who will be as men of old, men that are utterly consumed with my will; my fire; my purity; my love for others; and my power.”