Lesson from Sheep: Nutrition

The nutritionally wise Shepherd leads his flock to pastures that offer the very best nutrition. Sheep are herbivores, they are designed to eat grass but can also browse on brush. In fact sheep and goats are sometimes used to control brush in pastures.

In the show lamb business lambs are fed grain based diets to develop the kind of body condition that will impress show judges. As a Veterinarian, we see problems associated with feeding lambs a primarily grain based diet. It is not uncommon to attend a sick lamb who has developed bladder stones and suffered a urethral obstruction that is potentially fatal. Sheep are not designed to eat grain based diets and as a consequence suffer from variuos metabolic diseases (Chronic pancreatic inflammation, kidney disease, lamenesses and obesity).

Sheep love to eat corn, sorghum and all kinds of grains… it’s like eating candy for them.

So too the church-flock.

Wise Shepherds feed their flock with a balanced diet of God’s Word. Too many Shepherds and churches focus on things like…

- Fighting the denominations. A bulk of teaching in these type of congregations focus on what’s wrong with other churches.

- Social things. Some churches minimize Bible teaching and focus on fun things… activities and eating and sports and the like.

- Bible study. Some churches overwhelming focus is Bible study to the exclusion of anything social.

- The positive aspects of God his love, grace and care for his people to the exclusion of accountability and punishment.

- The negative aspects of God, his hatred of sin and punishment and destruction to the exclusion of his mercy and forgiveness.

God’s people need the right nutrition… a comprehensive balanced diet of God’s Word and the social things that naturally follow that understanding.

An awful lot of teaching is soft and tastes good (like candy) but can lead to spiritually crippling and sometimes fatal spiritual disease.

Watch out for congregations whose sheep wander off and no one seems to care and whose sheep are spiritually weak and diseased.

If you want to be the right kind of Christian look for a congregation whose Shepherds are wise and who care about their sheep and whose sheep are spiritually sound and happily flock together. The proof is in the pudding.