So you have faith in his Word, and yet you reject everything you don't like? Like all the neat metaphors, the comparisons? Those are there for a purpose. To teach us and to help us grow.
Yet you keep parroting all this nonsense about how you are not a sheep, only a son. Strange, I would rather be a daughter, but your choice of course. (Just joking! I know the masculine is inclusive of the feminine in Greek and Hebrew, as it used to be in English!)
The sheep metaphor is particularly poignant to me. My husband was telling me, after a frustrated day of disabling pain, that my "behaviour" showed I was not a Christian. I apologized, but then, God spoke to me and told me to tell him, "My sheep know my voice."
He was a bit taken aback, and then realized that, indeed, I did know the voice of God. It opened the door for me to speak to him about the fact that you cannot lose your salvation. A good talk, although, perhaps a ways to go for him on the soteriological issue.
Last summer, I was given John 10:7-10 to preach on in my church. That is when I got deep into the story behind sheep and goats, and how we are sheep, and that is a GOOD thing. Because, Jesus tells us to follow him, and all those years of me being a goat, running to and fro, far from him, came to an end, when I realized he was the door, and the way, the truth and the life AND the Good Shepherd!
Ironically, a favourite Word Faith verses is right in that parable of the sheep in John 10. (And yes you are Word Faith, not sure why you won't admit it. All the verses you quote, the way you argue, are all signs of following men and this destructive heresy, instead of the Bible, which you choose to reject so many parts of!)
"The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly." John 10:10
Too many people pull this verse out of context, and apply it to material blessings or other nonsense, instead of understanding the context of the verse.
"Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber.2 But he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep.3 To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.4 When he has brought out all his own, he goes before them, and the sheep follow him, for they know his voice.5 A stranger they will not follow, but they will flee from him, for they do not know the voice of strangers.”6 This figure of speech Jesus used with them, but they did not understand what he was saying to them.7 So Jesus again said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, I am the door of the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and robbers, but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly. 11 I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. 12 He who is a hired hand and not a shepherd, who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees, and the wolf snatches them and scatters them. 13 He flees because he is a hired hand and cares nothing for the sheep. 14I am the good shepherd. I know my own and my own know me,15 just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep. 15just as the Father knows me and I know the Father; and I lay down my life for the sheep." John 10:1-15.
The abundant life means having Jesus as the Good Shepherd. If you reject being a sheep, you are then rejecting the Good Shepherd. Besides not having respect for the Bible, where every single word counts! I would hate to see anyone excluded because from the Kingdom of God, because they had been lied to about the richness of the meanings of the Bible, and by rejecting being a sheep, the Good Shepherd also rejects them.
As for this narrow view that sheep and goats are nations, you really don't know how to read the Bible, do you? Jesus uses that in in Matt 25, to refer to the nations, but the metaphor is so much broader than that. You simply cannot hermeneutically apply one passage of Scripture to every other occurrence of the word sheep. Because, in the Bible, sometimes sheep are actually sheep, too!
I am not planning on missing out on God's goodness, for Jesus is the Good Shepherd and certainly, I am his sheep.
