LOVING GOD AND LOVING PEOPLE

 

This picture could be drawn from John 21:15-17. 

So when they had eaten breakfast, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me more than these?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Feed My lambs.” He said to him again a second time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” He said to Him, “Yes, Lord; You know that I love You.” He said to him, “Tend My sheep.” He said to him the third time, “Simon, son of Jonah, do you love Me?” Peter was grieved because He said to him the third time, “Do you love Me?” And he said to Him, “Lord, You know all things; You know that I love You.” Jesus said to him, “Feed My sheep.” (NKJV)

‭‭Loving the Lord and loving His lambs are bound together. To love God with all our being and our neighbor as ourselves summarizes all Biblical mandates. 

A preacher can love to be in the spotlight—to have the congregation’s focus on the pulpit on Sunday morning. It can feed the ego—and have no eternal significance. Paul put it this way: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.” (1 Cor.‬ ‭13‬:‭1‬-‭2‬).

You may preach with oratorical splendor and doctrinal soundness, but if our words do not flow from a heart devoted to the Father and His flock, it is worthless.

Church members smell like sheep.  They have a tendency to wander and when you seek them, you have to travel to places where you would not wish to go  It is a costly business.  Jesus said, “The good shepherd gives his life for the sheep,” (John 10:11).  He set the supreme example.  This is in contrast to the hireling—the man who does it as a job for his own benefit. “But a hireling, he who is not the shepherd, one who does not own the sheep, sees the wolf coming and leaves the sheep and flees; and the wolf catches the sheep and scatters them. The hireling flees because he is a hireling and does not care about the sheep.” (John‬ ‭10‬:‭12‬-‭13‬).

Sacrificial shepherd or self-centered hireling—which are we?