Living With Our Shepherd Of Love: Seeing Heaven Everyday in Every Person

By Dr. Patrick Kee

Jesus gave us the Lord's Prayer to teach us how to live a life of prayer – with our identity as a child of God, a vision to bring God's Kingdom on earth and the mission to do God's will as it is done in heaven. We are to pray for God's daily providences, pardon and protection from evil so that God's Kingdom, power and glory will be seen in our lives and in the world.The best way to live the Lord's Prayer in our daily lives is to enthrone Jesus as Lord so that He will be our Shepherd. We can then be S.H.E.E.P. - Seeing Heaven Everyday in Every Person as our eyes are opened to see God's abundance. God wants us to live our lives out of love and not out fear. To do so we address the myths of scarcity – False Evidence Appearing Real. We are living in a meritocratic, materialistic and goal centred society. Jesus came, died and rose from the dead to be our Good Shepherd so that we can live peaceful and joyful N.A.T.O. lives – lives that are Not Attached To Outcomes. Jesus came to give us the perfect rest in a busy world. Discerning God’s guidance for our lives is not a tedious journey when we learn to dance with God. We can seek God’s perfect will through the guidance of the Holy Spirit when we see GUIDANCE as God-U-I-Dance. Our relationship with God determines the way we pray. When we see Jesus Christ as our Divine Lover, the disciplines of surrender, repentance, self-examination and confession become a rhythm of God’s grace.The Christian journey is not a walk through a rose garden for we need to face the reality of suffering, death and evil. Death is inevitable but in Christ we can have the L.A.T.E. (Love Always Trumps Evil) faith. Jesus guides us with His rod of discipline and leads us out of temptation so that we can live a life without fear of evil.Our Shepherd of Love came not only to lead us out of the valley of the shadow of death – He came to be the sacrificial Lamb of God to set us free from the prison of guilt. Heaven is not just a place we go after we die. When Jesus is our Good Shepherd, heaven is the celebration feast of our restored and redeemed fellowship with God. Jesus came to give us the Holy Communion as God’s means of grace. God’s G.R.A.C.E. is free but not cheap – it is sacrificial for it is God’s Riches At Christ’s Expense. Living in crazy and capricious times lead us to F.A.I.L. – Find Answers In Life. It is folly to expect the right answers when we are asking the wrong questions. Even when we are asking the right questions, wrong answers can be the runways to find the right answer. To F.A.I.L. (Find Answers In Life) is to live out the answers to the questions that life throws at us through spiritual discipline that keeps us close the our Shepherd of Love. As we learn to rest in the Lord, we will SeeHis EternalPlanHelping Everyone Rest toDiscover peace in His everlasting HandsWith Jesus as our Shepherd of Love, we can live a life of prayer that is rooted in our identity as a child of God, filled with a vision to bring God’s kingdom on earth and a passion for the mission to do God’s will on earth as it is done in heaven. And we will be filled with the blessed assurance that goodness and mercy will follow us all the days of our lives and we will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Thomas Nelson
• Release date: Jun 19, 2018
• ISBN: 9781595557407

Dr. Patrick Kee

Patrick Kee, a semi -retired physician in palliative medicine has been caring for the elderly and terminally ill since 1990. He was active in the Social Concerns ministry of the Methodist Church in Singapore till 2006. His main interest is in writing. He wrote his first book, Living Well in the Autumn of Life, in 2009 and his second book, Living with our Heavenly Father, in 2011. He lives in Singapore with his wife, Mary.  He has two daughters and five grandchildren living in the U.K.

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PROLOGUE

My sixtieth birthday was a turning point in my life. It was a time when God had to break my dreams so that He could give me His dreams for my life. I was led to share my reflections on God’s amazing ways of living the more abundant life in my autumn years. I completed my first book, Living Well In The Autumn Of Life, just before my grandson, Zachary, was born.

I had written on The Secret of Nothing - that without God we are nothing and without God we can do nothing. But six years later, I wrote in my journal that there is nothing I can do to please God. All I need to do is to BE nothing so that Christ will be everything to me. It is only when Jesus Christ is truly everything in my life that I will have nothing to fear and have everything I need. It dawned on me that knowing the truth is a far cry from living the truth.

After the birth of my grandson, I felt inspired to write my second book, Living With Our Heavenly Father, to share my reflections on The Lord’s Prayer for my grandson, Zachary. The Lord’s Prayer draws attention to our identity as a child of God and provides us with a vision of God’s Kingdom in the here and now and our mission is to do God’s will on earth as it is in heaven. It is a prayer to increase our awareness of God’s provision for our daily needs, His pardon for our sins and His protection from evil.

The birth of my grand-daughter, Zoe, led me to reflect more deeply on my identity as a child of God as well as the life of compassion. Christians are often exhorted to live a life that is pleasing and honoring to God. We are told that we need to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. But many, if not most of us, struggle to do so.

Jesus died on the Cross both to give us our identity as a child of God as well as to show us a clearer picture of God as Abba, our Heavenly Father. Only then will we seek to have an intimate relationship with God and to truly experience the joy of our salvation.

The bad news is that there is a war against sin and evil. God is at war with evil and the cancerous growth of pride, greed, lust and hate that leads to death and destruction. The Good News is that God is seeking to redeem and not to condemn the sinner. God is seeking to save and rescue fallen mankind and to make all things new.

With a new and clearer consciousness of my identity as Abba’s child, I became more aware of my need for God’s grace to change my heart. On New Year’s day of 2016, I had written in my journal that the gospel truth is that God has given everything we need not only for eternal life but also to lead a God honoring life. God will not call us to do anything without providing a way for it to be done.

I felt led to write my third book, Living with Our Shepherd of Love to share my reflections and thoughts on Psalm 23. As I did so, Psalm 127:1 was a stark reminder that unless the Lord builds a house, the work of the builders is wasted. Likewise, unless this book is written with the Spirit of the Lord, it will not bear fruit but will only be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. My prayer is that this book will bear fruit not only in the lives of my grandchildren but will also be an encouragement to all who are companions for the sick and terminally ill as they live their lives with Jesus Christ as their Shepherd of Love.

Once you were like sheep who wandered away. But now you have turned to your Shepherd, the Guardian of your souls.¹

1 PETER 2:25 (NLT)

CHAPTER 1

S.H.E.E.P.

Seeing Heaven Everyday in Every Person

The Lord Is My Shepherd

PSALM 23:1(NLT)

We are living messy lives in a messy world that is unpredictable, uncertain and imperfect. Children are deprived of their childhood in a meritocratic society that is obsessed with success in examinations. Adults live like rats in a race of futility to get more and more but live less and less. And our elderly live their lives with quiet desperation - fearing death and struggling to find meaning in suffering. Life seems futile and without meaning when we live only for ourselves - when we try to be G.O.A.T.s - Greatest Of All Time. When we are alienated from God and we live our lives purely under the sun, life is meaningless and a chasing after the wind. This is the truth that the book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible paints for us so vividly:

I observed everything going on under the sun, and really, it is all meaningless – like chasing the wind. What is wrong cannot be made right. What is missing cannot be recovered.¹

ECCLESIASTES 1:14-15, NLT

The story of Adam and Eve is a story to portray our human condition - our desire to be in control and to be like gods. Consequently, we are separated from the love of God and living in hell on earth. The prophet Isaiah’s diagnosis of our human condition is that we are like sheep that have strayed away from God’s path to follow our own paths:

All of us, like sheep, have strayed away. We have left God’s paths to follow our own.²

ISAIAH 53:6, NLT

To fill the God-shaped vacuum for love in our hearts, we seek the approval of others and strive fruitlessly for certainty, control and perfection. But suffering, pain and unhappiness are inevitable when we live our lives as performers seeking to please others or as spectators demanding perfection in others. The only way to find meaning in suffering is to live as pencils in the hands of God for Him to write the story of His Love and to trust that we are a part of God’s beautiful tapestry of grace.

The Ego as our enemy

The bad news is that our hearts are under the control of our egos. EGO has been described as the poisonous three letter word. Ryan Holiday identified the ego as our enemy and makes the following astute observation:

The more successful or powerful we are, the more there will be that we think we need to protect in terms of legacy, image and influence. If we’re not careful, however, we end up wasting an incredible amount of time trying to keep the world from displeasing or disrespecting us.³

Our ego is the Pharaoh of our hearts that keeps us in slavery to our sinful desires. It is the Herod that seeks to keep Christ from being born in our hearts. Our egos are addicted to pleasure and power. Like an alcoholic we need to face and acknowledge that we are addicts to pleasure and the desire for control. We are enslaved by our fears of losing our wealth, our health and our lives. We are driven to the idolatrous worship of the gods of wealth, health and longevity and become slaves to sin and evil.

Jesus warns us that our thoughts, feelings and actions are determined by what is in our hearts:

But the words you speak come from the heart - that’s what defiles you. For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander. These are what defile you.⁴

MATTHEW 15:18-20, NLT

Watching my grand-daughter, Zoe, grow up from the terrible twos to a sweeter three year old gave me another perspective of the ego. A two year old can be a tyrant with her temper tantrums when things do not go the way she wants. She needed much patience and wisdom from her parents to help her ventilate her negative feelings in more positive ways. How true it is that there is a devil and an angel in each one of us.

I’m Precious, You’re Precious

Babysitting my grandchildren, Zachary and Zoe, brought back memories of the childhood days of my daughters. During that time,a psychological philosophy, I’m OK, You’re OK was popularized by Dr. Thomas A. Harris. This was based on the concept of Transactional Analysis, a psychological theory of individual and social inter relationships espoused by Dr. Eric Berne. I had applied some of the principles to bring up my two daughters. One of the tenets of Transactional Analysis is that how we live our lives are based on one of four life positions:

1. I’m not OK, You’re not OK

2. I’m not OK, You’re OK

3. I’m OK, You’re not OK

4. I’m OK, You’re OK

These life positions are to help us understand how we relate to and with one another. However, there are limitations as it is a purely humanistic psychology which fails to take into account our basic human need for the love of God which is agape love. When we look at life from the perspective of God’s love, we can live our lives from the following life positions:

1. I’m not precious, You’re not precious.

2. I’m not precious. You’re precious.

3. I’m precious, You’re not precious.

4. I’m precious, You’re precious.

The first three positions are the common life positions that all of us adopt at