Negative example of pastoring. Part 3

Ezekiel 34:5. NASB95
5 “They were scattered for lack of a shepherd, and they became food for every beast of the field and were scattered.”

This is an outworking of something called “abdication.”

Abdication: Latin origin is “abdicare” meaning to renounce. Abdication means, “fail to fulfill or undertake (a duty).”

Israel had shepherds, but they were abdicating their responsibility to their flock.

The shepherds that the Lord was denouncing had become focused on their own desires, not on the needs of the flock.

To turn this around, if I am called as a pastor, I need to embrace that call as a duty and fulfill it. I know that I will always fall short. Which, of course, is why the Good Shepherd had to lay down His life for us in the first place.