Hi friends, welcome to today's word of encouragement from Our Daily Bread.

Our reading is titled Know His Voice, and it was written by Julie Schwab.

One year for vacation Bible school, Ken's church decided to bring in live animals to illustrate the

scripture. When he arrived to help, Ken was asked to bring a sheep inside. He had to practically

drag the woolly animal by a rope into the church gymnasium. But as the week went on,

it became less reluctant to follow him. By the end of the week, Ken didn't

have to hold the rope anymore. He just called the sheep and it followed, knowing it could trust him.

In the New Testament, Jesus compares himself to a shepherd, stating that his people, the sheep,

will follow him because they know his voice. But those same sheep

will run from a stranger or thief. Like sheep, we, God's children, get to know the voice of our shepherd

through our relationship with him. And as we do, we see his character and learn to trust him. As we grow to know and love God,

we'll be discerning of his voice and better able to run from the thief who comes only to steal

and kill and destroy, from those who try to deceive and draw us away from him.

Unlike those false teachers, we can trust the voice of our shepherd to lead us to safety.

Today's Our Daily Bread Devotional Scripture reading is from the book of John, chapter 10

verses 1 through 10. Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate,

but climbs in by some other way is a thief and a robber. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep.

The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own

sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them,

and his sheep follow him because they know his voice.

But they will never follow a stranger. In fact, they will run away from him because they do not

recognize a stranger's voice. Jesus used this figure of speech, but the Pharisees did not

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