John 10:29. "My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand."

Jesus is answering some Jews who have asked Him to tell them plainly whether He is the Christ (John 10:24). He says He has told them already, and they have seen the works He does, but they still do not believe, because they do not belong to his sheep. (John 10:25-26). He says His sheep know His voice and follow Him - He knows them and gives them eternal life. No one can snatch them from His hand, nor from the Father's hand, they have been entrusted to Him. (John 10:28-29).

What does it mean to "hear His voice" and therefore be one of these perfectly protected sheep? Obviously, the Jews asking the question could hear Jesus when He spoke. They also could see the works He had performed. Yet, despite hearing and seeing, they did not believe. There was some barrier, some inability to understand what they heard and saw. Jesus knew He could try to explain to them until He was blue in the face and they still would not believe, they'd still be asking the same question. The people who do believe, the sheep who cannot be snatched from His hand, are the ones who hear Jesus' words, see His actions, and understand and believe. They do not have the barrier the others do. Or, they do, but they overcome it when they hear His voice. The barrier is the barrier of sin, and the lies of this world. Often, Jesus says things that go so much against the world as we understand it, that it is hard to believe Him (think of the Bread of Life discourse!). But when faced with a choice between believing the world, and believing Jesus, believing Jesus is always the right way to go, it is the choice that will keep us safe.

As the truth of what has happened over the last few years begins to slowly come into focus, some who believed the lies are asking those who didn't to try to be understanding of other people's "perspectives." We are told to remember that not everyone sees things the way we do, and we must understand that people have different points of view. But the truth is not a matter of opinion or feelings. Many of us did see that other people truly believed the things they said, but we also knew they had been deceived. We tried to lovingly and very gently point out to them the some of the various ways we were being lied to and the damage it was doing. We tried to show people that we had a different perspective, and if they believed in tolerance, they should give the same respect to our differing point of view, which just happened to be right (although we deserved the same respect even if we were wrong!). We tried to say that maybe we were seeing the same thing, but not truly understanding what the truth was. Personally, I did not fully know what the truth was, but I could see very clearly that we were being lied to, and I wondered why others could not see it, and why many reacted so viciously to my differing perspective.

I thought about all of this as I pondered what Jesus was going through in this interaction. All of the evidence, and even His words, were there, testifying to the truth that He is in fact, the Christ, but they simply could not understand. Jesus, unlike us, knows the truth, because He is the truth. He knows that these people are not ready to believe Him. He would love to lead them to the truth, but they will not go where He leads. So, for now at least, He has to let them be - not part of His flock and at risk of being snatched away. They may come to see the truth later, hopefully, but they will not now.

The way to be one of Jesus' protected sheep, then, is to listen to Him and trust His words. Jesus will never lie to us, but the world will, it does all the time. If Jesus' teachings are conflicting with what the world is telling us, or if what the world is telling us to do is hurting other people in a way we know Jesus would not want us to, then it is the world that is lying. We should stay in the safety of His truth, if we want to avoid being snatched away.