![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/sheep-300x225.avif\")
Photo by Tanner Yould<\/a> on Unsplash<\/a><\/p><\/div>\n If you love Jesus, you must tend His sheep (John 21:15-17). This is what Jesus told Peter. You cannot love Jesus without caring for Jesus’ church, who are His sheep. Jesus is inseparable from His church. You cannot have one without the other. You cannot love Jesus and serve Jesus without loving and serving His church. Jesus died for the church. It was that important to Him (Acts 20:28; Ephesians 5:23). Therefore, if we forsake His church, do not attend and encourage His church, we do not love Jesus.<\/p>\n Peter tended and fed Jesus’ sheep. He did that on a local level in Jerusalem in Acts 2:42f. So, if you love Jesus, you must find and join yourself to a local church that you can identify as Jesus’ sheep and do what you can to help them grow up in all things in Christ, to be like Him, and to help His sheep be knit together in love. Encouraging and edifying the sheep of Christ is tightly connected to knowing what is important to Christ and loving Christ Jesus enough to fulfill His will for His church.<\/p>\n Are you tending His sheep? Do you love Jesus? Feed His sheep, His church!<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" by Terry Wane Benton If you love Jesus, you must tend His sheep (John 21:15-17). This is what Jesus told Peter. You cannot love Jesus without caring for Jesus’ church, who are His sheep. Jesus is inseparable from His church. You cannot have one without the other. You cannot love Jesus and serve Jesus without…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_seo_schema_type":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[27],"tags":[448,1059,451],"class_list":["post-70683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","tag-church","tag-edification","tag-teaching"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":98439,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/like-sheep-without-a-shepherd\/","url_meta":{"origin":70683,"position":0},"title":"Like Sheep Without a Shepherd","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"October 4, 2026","format":false,"excerpt":"by David Gibson For 40 years Moses shepherded his father-in-law's flock in the wilderness. Then God called him to shepherd some 2-3 million Israelites for the next 40 years.\u00a0What a task that proved to be! This flock constantly complained and, at times, was stubbornly rebellious. Yet despite their contrariness, Moses\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/10\/sheep-200x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":47091,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/the-lost-sheep\/","url_meta":{"origin":70683,"position":1},"title":"The Lost Sheep","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"February 7, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"by Jeffrey W. Hamilton Text: Luke 15:1-7 \u00a0 I.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When people can\u2019t fault a person, they will sometimes seek to find fault in the way someone does things. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This is how the Pharisees and Scribes sought to degrade Jesus\u2019 reputation. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0B.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It wasn\u2019t something they would do. In fact, they implied it\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Audio"","block_context":{"text":"Audio","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/audio\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":20848,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/what-did-jesus-expect-of-peter-when-he-said-to-feed-his-sheep\/","url_meta":{"origin":70683,"position":2},"title":"What did Jesus expect of Peter when he said to feed his sheep?","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"November 16, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Question: Our Lord Jesus in John 21 tells\u00a0the apostle Peter to feed His sheep three times. What role was Peter being told to assume? Is it that of an elder? \u00a0Which sheep was our Lord talking about? Is it the other apostles and disciples or the church that was going\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Answer"","block_context":{"text":"Answer","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/answer\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":90545,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/we-must-have-the-church\/","url_meta":{"origin":70683,"position":3},"title":"We Must Have the Church","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 16, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"by Adam Faughn In our world, we sometimes hear people who speak of how they want a relationship with Jesus, but they do not want much (if anything) to do with the church. This is not new; in fact, some of you will remember the days when the saying, \"give\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":9744,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/our-need-for-guidance\/","url_meta":{"origin":70683,"position":4},"title":"Our Need for Guidance","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"September 15, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Text: John 10:1-18 \u00a0 I.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A disturbing trend has been commented upon time and again \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Children going astray, Christians leaving the church. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0B.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It appears that the second law of thermodynamics applies to Christians as well. \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a01.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Instead of a trend toward increasing entropy (randomness and disorder) \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a02.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It is a trend toward increasing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Sermon"","block_context":{"text":"Sermon","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/sermon\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":48233,"url":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/christ-our-shepherd\/","url_meta":{"origin":70683,"position":5},"title":"Christ, Our Shepherd","author":"Jeffrey Hamilton","date":"June 9, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Text: John 10 We live in a fearful time. 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There has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Article"","block_context":{"text":"Article","link":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/category\/article\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70683\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lavistachurchofchrist.org\/cms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}