Feed My Lambs

Feed My Lambs THE MOTIVE FOR FEEDING the lambs was to be his Master's self, and not his own self. Had Peter been the first pope of Rome, and had he been like his successors, which indeed he never was, surely it would have been fitting for the Lord to have said to him, "Feed your sheep. I commit them to you, O Peter, Vicar of Christ on earth." No, no, no. Peter is to feed them, but they are not his, they are still Christ's. The work that you have to do for Jesus, brethren and sisters, is in no sense for yourselves. Your classes are not your children, but Christ's. The exhortation which Paul gave was, "Feed the church of God," and Peter himself wrote in his epistle, "Feed the flock of God which is among you, taking the oversight thereof, not by constraint, but willingly; not for filthy lucre but of a ready mind." Let these lambs turn out what they may, the glory is to be to the Master and not to the servant; and the whole time spent, and labour given, and energy put forth, is every particle of it to redound to His praise whose these lambs are.
Many of us have been plucked like brands from the burning, for we were "enemies to God by wicked works"; and now we are in the church among His friends, and our Saviour trusts us with His dearest ones. I wonder when the prodigal son came back and the father received him, whether when market-day came he sent his younger son to market to sell the wheat and bring home the money. Most of you would have said, "I am glad the boy is come back; at the same time, I shall send his elder brother to do the business, for he has always stuck by me." As for myself, the Lord Jesus took me in as a poor prodigal son, and it was not many weeks before He put me in trust with the gospel, that greatest of all treasures; this was a grand love-token. I know of none to excel it. The commission given to Peter proved how thoroughly the breach was healed, how fully the sin was forgiven, for Jesus took the man who had cursed and sworn in denial of Him and bade him feed His lambs and sheep. Oh, blessed work, not for yourselves, and yet for yourselves! He that serves himself shall lose himself, but he that loseth himself doth really serve himself after the best possible fashion.
First, as a proof of love. "If ye love Me, keep My commandments." If ye love Me, feed My lambs. If ye love Christ, show it, and show it by doing good to others, by laying yourself out to help others, that Jesus may have joy of them.
Besides being an inflowing of love, the feeding of lambs is an outflow of love. How often have we told our Lord that we loved Him when we were preaching, and I do not doubt you teachers feel more of the pleasure of love to Jesus when you are busy with your classes than when you are by yourselves at home. A person may go home and sit down and groan out—
"'Tis a point I long to know,
Oft it causes anxious thought," and wipe his forehead and rub his eyes, and get into the dumps without end; but if he will rise up and work for Jesus, the point he longs to know will soon be settled, for love will come pouring out of his heart till he can no longer question whether it is there.
"So let us abide in this blessed service for Christ that it may be the delight of love, the very ocean in which love shall swim, the sunlight in which it shall bask. The recreation of a loving soul is work for Jesus Christ; and amongst the highest and most delicious forms of this heavenly recreation is the feeding of young Christians endeavouring to build them up in knowledge and understanding, that they may become strong in the Lord.