Hi, I’m Rabbi Michael Wolf, writer, director, author. This is God Today. The Shepherd’s heart – that is what God gave me so many years ago. I have been leading Beth Messiah Messianic Jewish Synagogue in Cincinnati, Ohio, for 40 years. I can remember when God gave me that Shepherd’s heart. I was in leadership under Philadelphia, I was teaching in that capacity I had come out of retail after graduating college. The leader of that congregation heard in his spirit that I should consider this direction. I did not take it seriously at first, but the Lord told me to call him back – God was doing something.
At that point, it was a prophetic word that was given to somebody that knew nothing about it. That person said, “I have given Michael Wolf a shepherd’s heart and called him into ministry.” At that point, that heart was planted in me. I believe it is the number one prerequisite for anyone who wants to lead a congregation. Seminaries are great. Studies are wonderful; other kinds of preparation. But, the shepherd’s heart is the number one prerequisite for one who is called to congregational ministry. Once that heart is given there is a “rhema”, a specific word promise that goes with it. You find out there is a reason for it later because it gets challenged. There are all kinds of opposition, but through it all, that shepherd’s heart that lays his life down for the sheep, breaks through and becomes the transformative anointing that God uses in that context.
God has never failed me over the last 40 years. He has never left me, He has always confirmed His calling to me because the shepherd’s heart never disappears. You can abuse it, you can try to walk away from it, but you never lose it. I want to pray for you if you sense that call on your life, that pastoral call of a shepherd’s heart – which for me has worked out in my context of my calling of a messianic rabbi. Lord, I pray for those who are watching today, particular somebody who feels that stirring and that calling, and perhaps it has already been confirmed that you have given them a shepherd’s heart to lead the sheep. I pray, oh God Father, that they continue to walk in faith and step out into that area and watch what you can do. That they would have others that would pray for them, and intercede for them, and cover them in that way. But, Lord, I pray that they would be able to launch out in the area that you called them to, and you would open doors no man can shut. I thank you for this, in the name of Yeshua HaMashiach, Jesus the Messiah. Amen.