Feed My Sheep

The Dead Sea and the Sea of Galilee are two famous bodies of water in Israel. The Dead Sea has extreme salt levels and therefore cannot support fish or aquatic plants, hence the name. The Sea of Galilee on the other hand is a beautiful lake teeming with aquatic life. What makes these lakes that are less than 100 miles apart so drastically different?

The answer provides a compelling analogy for this month’s command: Feed My Sheep. The Dead Sea’s high salt content, which is what makes it barren, comes from the fact that while water flows in from the Jordan River, the Dead Sea has no outlet other than evaporation. The Sea of Galilee also has the Jordan River flowing into it. The difference with the Sea of Galilee is the Jordan River both flows into and out of it. The flowing, instead of stagnant, water is what makes the difference and allows the Sea of Galilee to support aquatic life.

Jesus gave the command to feed His sheep on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. This body of water gives a wonderful picture of what we need to do as believers if we are going to live out this command. We need to be receiving from the Lord through spending time in His Word and in prayer, and seek to feed Christ’s sheep through sowing into the lives of others. We need to personally be meditating on the Word and getting our spiritual nourishment from the Scriptures before we can properly feed others.
If we try to feed Christ’s sheep while not taking time personally to sit at the feet of the Good Shepherd and receive from Him ourselves, we can become worn out and burned out. But if we only receive from the Lord and don’t minister into the lives of others from what He has shown us, we can become spiritually stagnant and self-centered. We need to be both giving and receiving.

The Lord Jesus Christ Who is the Great Shepherd of the sheep (see Hebrews 13:20) knows exactly what His sheep need. The Lord wants to use us as part of feeding His flock. The Lord shares His heart with us as we seek His face and spend time getting to know Him deeper. The natural outflow of us getting to know His Shepherd’s heart is that we seek to disciple and encourage those around us for His glory.