Experiencing the Lord’s Shepherding for the Recovery of the Church Life (Ezek. 34)

How blessed we are to be under the Lord’s shepherding for the recovery of the church life, as seen in Ezekiel 34!

The Lord is indeed our good Shepherd, and He Himself comes to search for us, His sheep, to seek us out; He brings us from among the unbelievers to Himself so that we may enjoy Him in all His riches.

He comes to us not as a mighty king but as a tender Shepherd, and in His all-inclusive tender care He cherishes us and nourishes us, bringing us all the way into the full enjoyment of Himself as the good pasture and the rivers of living water.

In the Lord’s shepherding, He brings us to our own land – He brings us to Christ, the all-inclusive good land, for us to enjoy, partake of, live in, and labor on day by day. The Lord brings us back to the high mountains – He brings us into the experience of the resurrected and ascended Christ.

In our daily experience, the Lord in His shepherding brings us into the enjoyment of Himself as the rich pasture, feeding us with His riches,a nd as the living water of the life-giving Spirit, for us to drink and quench our thirst. Hallelujah, how we love our good Shepherd, Jesus Christ!

In His shepherding, the Lord causes us to lie down, giving us inward rest; we bring to Him our burdens, cares, anxieties, and problems, and He gives us rest for our soul. The Lord binds up the broken one and strengthens the sick one; He binds up and heals the brokenhearted and sick ones.

There may be sufferings, troubles, and tears, but the Lord in His shepherding knows how to care for us, bind us up, and heal any brokenheartedness.

As He shepherds us in this way, the Lord exercises righteous judgments among us, clearing away all the unjust things. He removes offenses and hurt feelings, He heals relationships, clears up any misunderstandings, and corrects anything that is off.

The Lord Jesus Christ is the real David – He’s the real Shepherd, set up as the One Shepherd to feed us and cause us to be filled and satisfied (Ezek. 34:23). In the Lord’s shepherding, He takes care of us – He cares for all our problems and responsibilities and every aspect of our living.

The issue of such a tender care in His shepherding is that we obey Him as our King, and we come under His kingship. How we love our Lord in His tender shepherding in the church life!

As we Experience the Lord’s Shepherding we enjoy His Covenant of Peace and are Protected

As we experience the Lord’s shepherding and remain under His kingship, we enjoy His covenant of peace, and we are no longer subject to spiritual troubles and disturbances (see Ezek. 37:25).

The Lord made a covenant of peace with us, His people; this covenant is established, secure, and unchanging, and according to this covenant we are kept in perfect peace, with no more troubles and disturbances.

The Lord promises to banish evil beasts from the land (Ezek. 34:25); in His recovery, the Lord keeps us away from any evil persons that would disturb us (see Acts 20:29).

The Lord’s shepherding is to recover His people back to the genuine church life so that they would be His flock and He would be their shepherd. In the proper church life there are no wolves: there are only lambs, and any evil beasts are caused by the Lord to cease.

Today there may be some saints who are suffering unnecessary attacks from the enemy, because there is not yet a sufficient shepherding to protect them; we need to experience Christ as the real David to shepherd us and enact the covenant of peace.

Under the Lord’s shepherding, all the evil persons are kept away from us, the Lord’s recovered people (Phil. 3:2-3). The enemy hates us and what we are doing, and we are the target of his attacks; the Lord in His shepherding protects us and covers us, and we can cooperate with His shepherding by praying for our families and the saints with their families to be protected by the good Shepherd.

The Lord breaks the bars of all our yokes, including the yokes of sin and the world, and He delivers us from all kinds of slavery (Ezek. 34:27). Hallelujah, Jesus breaks every fetter! When we are under the Lord’s shepherding, we have no yokes or bondage; rather, we have full liberty and full release.

In the church life we enjoy the Lord’s shepherding and we are liberated from every kind of slavery. As we meet with the saints and enjoy the Lord’s shepherding and His grace, we sense that we are set free from the bondage of sin, lust, the flesh, the law, and death, and we enjoy Christ as our rich supply.

Hallelujah, the Lord promises that we will no longer be prey to the nations (Ezek. 34:28), that is, we will no longer be defeated or captured by the enemy. Instead of the enemy defeating us, we are protected by the Lord and the enemy is defeated.

In the church life we share the spoil of the Lord’s recovery, of the Lord’s victory; here we don’t struggle to gain the victory, but we simply enjoy the victory of the Lord.

We need to enjoy the Lord’s shepherding and thus be protected, covered, supplied, and be in peace, and we also need to shepherd one another by being one with Christ as the good Shepherd, so that all the saints in all the churches would be under the Lord’s all-inclusive tender care, including His protection from the enemy.

As we enjoy the Lord’s shepherding, we will dwell securely and restfully in Christ, without any fear; in Christ we have peace.

Lord Jesus, we want to constantly experience and enjoy the Lord’s shepherding and remain under His kingship so that we may enjoy His covenant of peace and be no longer subject to spiritual troubles and disturbances. Keep us under Your shepherding day by day so that all the evil persons and evil things would be kept away from us, and we would enjoy peace. Lord, in Your shepherding, remove all the yokes of sin and the world, and deliver us from all kinds of slavery. Amen, Lord, recover us fully to the proper church life that we may dwell in peace and safety under Your shepherding!

The Lord’s Shepherding causes us to be His People and makes us a Blessing for others

Ezekiel 34 shows us how the Lord promises to be our Shepherd, and how we can enjoy the Lord’s shepherding in our daily life and experience. The Lord promises not only that we would receive His blessing but also that He would make us a blessing for others (Ezek. 34:26).

As we enjoy the Lord as the pasture and the rivers of water of life, we remain in His peace and dwell securely in the land, and He not only blesses us but makes us a blessing, according to His covenant of peace. First we enjoy the Lord’s blessing, then He will cause us to become a source of blessing to others.

The Lord causes us to become a source of blessing to others so that they may be supplied with Him as the showers of blessing and as the planting place of renown (Ezek. 34:26-27, 29; Zech. 10:1; Ezek. 36:35). He blesses us, His sheep, and He causes us to be channels of blessing for His blessing to flow through us to others.

Through the experience of the Lord’s shepherding, we have God’s presence; we are His people, He is our God, and we are in fellowship in oneness with Him for the mingling of God and man (Ezek. 34:30-31).

The result of the Lord’s wonderful shepherding is that we become His flock, and He becomes our God and Shepherd; we are mingled with God, and we have fellowship with Him in oneness.

The Lord promises that He will be with us, we will be His people, and He will be our God; we will have His presence, and we will enjoy Him in the recovered church life. The Lord’s shepherding results in our enjoyment of Him in the genuine church life; He recovers us in a genuine way back to Himself and to the church, for us to be His flock and Him our Shepherd.

What the Lord is doing today is the recovery of the church life – the real mingling of God and man; for this, He is shepherding us in an all-inclusive and tender way as His sheep.

We need to present ourselves as sheep to be under His tender care. The Lord is directly shepherding each one of us, and He is gaining many of His people to cooperate with Him and shepherd His sheep according to God.

When we realize that we, the Lord’s sheep, are under the Lord’s personal and direct care in the way described in Ezekiel 34, we are moved to tears, our heart is melted, and we love the Lord much more.

He loves us, He cares for each one of us as one of His sheep, and He does this with the flock in view.

The more the Lord shepherds us and cares for us in this way, the more we know Him – and the more we become Him, and He will live in us and through us the same shepherding life for the flock.

Thank You Lord for Your direct shepherding for each one of us, Your sheep. We present ourselves as sheep to be under Your all-inclusive tender care. Thank You for giving us Your blessings and for making us channels for Your blessings to flow to others. Thank You for mingling Yourself with us in our fellowship with You in oneness. Lord, our heart is full of love and appreciating for Your love for us, Your care for us, and Your shepherding for each one of us with the flock in view. Make us one with You in Your shepherding, Lord, that we may also care for Your sheep according to You!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by brother Ron K. for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Ezekiel, msg. 16 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Ezekiel (1), msg. 11 (week 11), God’s Recovery by Life through His Shepherding.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # The King of love my Shepherd is, / Whose goodness faileth never; / I nothing lack if I am His, / And He is mine forever. / Where streams of living water flow / My ransomed soul He leadeth, / And, where the verdant pastures grow, / With food celestial feedeth. (Hymns #528)
  # Jesus, our wonderful Shepherd / Brought us right out of the fold / Into His pasture so plenteous, / Into His riches untold. / Glorious church life, / Feasting from such a rich store! / Here where we’re dwelling in oneness / God commands life evermore. (Hymns #1221)
  # O brother, won’t you gather in the local church? / A fountain here is flowing deep and wide. / The Shepherd now would bring you to the local church, / Where thirsty spirits can be satisfied. (Hymns #1234)