This description is of Christ is, to me, the most comforting ; one cannot hear the words without thinking of the 23rd Psalm. And, I imagine that Christ had that psalm in mind when He gave us this illustration. 

King David, the preeminent king of Israel and author of many of the 23rd Psalm, had spent his youth as a shepherd. He knew well that the first qualification of the shepherd was to be willing to die for the sheep. He had faced death himself, fighting off a lion and a bear to protect his sheep. 

It is because the Good Shepherd has already defeated the lion that sought to devour us that we – His sheep – may fear no evil, even though we pass through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. 

Christ is our Good Shepherd. I shall not want…