"If you love me then...."

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John 21:15.......When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter "Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?"  "Yes, Lord" he said, "you know that I love you.  Jesus said, "Feed my lambs".

This scripture is a snippit of the sermon we had this morning at our out-door worship.  After the service we voted on calling a new pastor and had 99% approval which is super-exciting....and then a pot luck lunch. ( Let me just say that a potluck lunch where we are asked to bring a hot and a cold dish, to be served after a 10am church service and short congregational meeting is a challenge for me!  How to keep the hot dish hot and the cold dish cold and since I work for public health I understand the implications of not having food consumed at proper temps!  We managed. )

Lately, Josiah has been getting naughtier.  Feistier.  Pushing buttons and causing trouble. It's what littlest brothers do I guess.  For awhile I let it go because he is just so dag-gum cute but I have started to crack down on his behaviors more.  He doesn't like it.  At all.  I have had to scold him, reprimand him, discipline him more regularly and when I do, he starts to cry big alligator tears from his impossibly gorgeous big brown eyes.  He tips his head back and starts to wail and cry and the look on his face is so helpless......but he is seriously naughty.  He began to use this phrase after discipline, "But mom!  I just love you!"......and I think he was looking for some reassurance that even though I was upset with him, I could reassure him that it didn't mean I didn't love him.  We did that cat and mouse dance for awhile.....he did something naughty, I called him on it, he started to cry, I got upset and he would say "But mom!  I just love you!"

Eventually I responded with something like what Jesus said to Simon Peter.  I began to say, "Josiah!  If you love me then show me by what you do and not just your words.  I know you love me because you tell me all the time, but show me!  Listen to me and obey me and don't cause so much trouble.  Show my you love me by what you can do."........as Jesus said:  Simon Peter.  If you love me, then feed my lambs.

We can pray our prayers in secret or in public and declare our love for the Lord.  We can sing praises in church and in the car and tell Him we love Him......and that's all good stuff.  This passage, and my experience with my son says that we must declare our love for one another but we must also take action and do love.  Jesus himself tells us to "feed His lambs".

God is so, so good that He lets us define this commandment.  It can and should look different for all Christians in different seasons of life.....but I do think it is important to know Him well enough to know who His Lambs are.  Maybe we could all start to ask God Almighty to show us His Lambs......and then give us the wisdom and clarity and compassion to stop putting the spoon in our own mouths and start to feed.....His Lambs.  

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