Do You Love Me?

In John 21, Jesus asks this question three times of Peter. For some reason, we always seem to focus on the question and answer dialog between Jesus and Peter, and neglect the explanation that Jesus gave of how Peter was to show his love for the Lord. Jesus instructed Peter to "feed my sheep". Although we may be in very different Kingdom roles than Peter was to be, I believe that this is still what God's servants need to be concerned with. The key word that I noticed in this passage a few days ago is "my". The sheep are not ours! Whether we are pastors or laypeople, we need to be ministering to our fellow believers where God gives opportunity regardless of whether they are in "our church" or of our ethnic group or even agree with us on all the finer points of Biblical interpretation.

There is of course one other context where Jesus instructs how we are to show our love for Him. In John 14:15, Jesus says "If you love Me, you will obey what I command". We must be obedient, reverent, desiring to let the holiness and righteousness of our Lord shine through us.

We show our love for God by living our own lives in obedience to His Word and by strengthening His Church (our fellow believers). We must have both an inward and an outward focus if we are to be complete in our faith. For a congregation, there must be a passionate concern both for the church and for the Church. And neither one of those is made of bricks or sticks.