We all need to know and experience Christ as the Shepherd of our souls; He oversees our inward condition, caring for the situation of our inner being, and He shepherds us in our soul to take care of our mind, emotion, and will with all our problems, needs, and wounds.
Before we can shepherd others according to God, we need to first enjoy and experience the Lord’s shepherding.
He is the good Shepherd, the Shepherd of our soul. Our soul has many problems and issues, and the more we grow in the human life, the more problems and wounds we experience.
But praise the Lord, He knows our situation, He knows our case, He cares for our soul, and He is the Shepherd of our soul.
On one hand, He is in our spirit to be our life and life supply, and we can turn to our spirit to partake of all His riches.
In this way, He strengthens us into our inner man so that He may make His home in our hearts.
On the other hand, the Lord is the Shepherd of our soul, knowing the situation of our inner being and overseeing the condition of our soul in love.
All the things around us are arranged in a sovereign way by the Lord so that He may shepherd us.
He shepherds us not only personally in our time with Him, but even more, He works in the environment through so many things, situations, and people, to shepherd us.
We can all testify that, after having an argument with the Lord and disagreeing with Him about something, even if we want to go to the world and enjoy something of it, the Lord is still there with us, shepherding our soul and leading us back into the enjoyment of Himself.
First, He shepherded us out of the world and even out of any division into the church life.
Then, as we live the church life, He is shepherding us in our soul so that we may be cared for, nourished, cherished, and willing to cooperate with Him for the fulfilment of His economy.
The Lord is our shepherd, and we lack nothing in Him; He leads us on the paths of righteousness and restores our soul for His name’s sake (Psa. 23).
Again and again, as we veer from the Lord, as we are led astray by so many things and situations, the Lord comes in to shepherd us in our soul and bring us back to the enjoyment of Himself.
May we see and realize the Lord’s shepherding, and may we appreciate how He shepherds us so that we ourselves may learn from Him to shepherd others in their soul with the shepherding that the Lord has shepherded us.
Christ is the Shepherd of our Souls, Overseeing our Inward Condition and Caring for the Welfare of our Soul
A shepherd takes care of the needs of his flock; he oversees their situation and condition, and he takes care of the flock as a whole and of each sheep individually.
Similarly, Christ as our Shepherd takes care of the needs of our soul. Christ is the Shepherd and Overseer of our soul; we were like sheep being led astray, but thank the Lord, we have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls (1 Pet. 2:25).
Christ is the Shepherd of our soul. He is the indwelling Spirit in our spirit, and He is the Shepherd of our soul; He is overseeing the condition of our soul and cares for its welfare.
Our soul is our inner being, our real person; the Lord as the Shepherd and Overseer of our soul shepherds us by caring for the welfare of our inner being.
He exercises His oversight over the condition of our real person. He knows that our mind is wandering and not easy to focus on something, and He knows what are the problems in our soul.
Our soul is very complicated, and there are many problems in our mind, emotion, and will.
The Lord as the Shepherd of our soul takes tender, loving care of our mind, emotion, and will.
He takes loving care of our memories, our feelings, and our decisions.
He is not spying on us; He knows us, He knows the inward condition of our soul, He really knows how we feel and think and choose, and He shepherds us in love.
On one hand, we are learning to exercise our spirit by setting our mind on our spirit so that we may enjoy the Lord and partake of Him as life for Him to spread a little more in our soul.
On the other hand, we are learning to open to the Lord and experience Him as the Shepherd of our soul, the One who cares for the condition of our soul.
He knows that we may not want to experience Christ, for we are afraid that we will lose certain things and we may not partake of certain activities if we do so; so the Lord shepherds our soul in love.
As the Shepherd of our souls, Christ oversees our inward condition; He cares for the situation of our inner being.
He is the Spirit overseeing our condition, observing us so as to shepherd us and care for us in live.
We need Him to shepherd us.
Christ’s organic shepherding primarily takes care of our soul (Psa. 23:3); He restores our soul and guides us on the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
He knows that we may imagine certain things, we may desire some things, and we may have an affinity for particular persons or things; He is the Shepherd of our soul.
He is not surprised of the way we feel and of what we think about; He is overseeing the condition of our soul and knows our inner being.
The Lord has a loving concern for us; He shepherds us by caring for the welfare of our soul.
He exercises oversight over the condition of our inner being.
He wants our inner being to be at peace so that Christ may grow in us and make His home in our heart; so He is the Shepherd of our soul to restore our soul.
How much we need the Lord’s shepherding in our soul!
The more we enjoy and experience the Lord’s shepherding in our soul, the more we grow in life, enjoy the Lord, and have the capacity to have genuine fellowship.
This kind of shepherding is an intrinsic, inward, and organic shepherding (2 Cor. 1:3-4).
May we open to His organic shepherding in our soul and may we allow Him to restore our soul and guide us on the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.
Lord Jesus, we want to know and experience You as the Shepherd of our souls. Thank You for coming into us to be our life in our mingled spirit, and thank You for being the Shepherd of our soul. We open to Your shepherding. We open our mind, emotion, and will to You. You know the situation of our inner being. We open to Your care for the welfare of our inner being. We believe that You exercise Your oversight over the condition of our real person to shepherd us into the enjoyment and experience of Christ for the building up of the church. Oh Lord, keep our being open to Your shepherding. Restore our soul. Guide us on the paths of righteousness for Your name’s sake. Oh Lord, You know what we desire, what our imaginations are, and what we like and dislike. We open to You from the depths of our being. Keep our being open to Your organic, intrinsic, inward comforting and shepherding!
Christ as the Life-giving Spirit Shepherds us in our Soul to take care of our Mind, Emotion, and Will and all our Problems, Needs, and Wounds
If you have tried to take care of someone you realize that every human being is very complicated; it is not easy to really know someone and take care of them.
Because our soul is very complicated, we need Christ, who is the life-giving Spirit in our spirit, to shepherd us in our soul (John 14:16-17; 1 Cor. 15:45b; 6:17).
We need the Lord’s shepherding in our soul so that He may take care of our mind, emotion, and will with all our problems, needs, and wounds.
Our soul is so complicated. It is easy and simple to be in spirit, but when it comes to our soul, everything is very complicated.
For example, we may be offended by someone in the church life, and we may pray very much about it and cannot forgive that person.
Actually, in the Lord we have forgiven that person, but the problem is with our soul: our soul has been hurt, for our feelings are wounded.
So we need to open to Christ as the life-giving Spirit to shepherd us in our soul.
The more we try to be tough and suppress the offense, the wound, the more it remains; we may not allow the feeling of our wound to come to our consciousness, and this leads to an unhealthy situation. Oh, Lord!
Because of the hurt, there’s the suffering, the pain, and this may give us the feeling that we have not forgiven that person.
But the Lord wants to come to us as the good Samaritan to pour oil and wine into the wound, to bind it up, and to heal us with the divine life and the Spirit.
May we open to Christ as the Shepherd of our soul day by day so that He as the life-giving Spirit may shepherd us in our soul and take care of our mind, emotion, and will with all our problems, needs, and wants.
May we just appeal to the Lord and open to Him.
Though we have been wounded, though we have problems, and though we have so many needs and wants, we can open to the Shepherd of our soul, for He knows this and He knows what to do and how to care for us.
May we come to the Lord as an open vessel to let Him shepherd us in our soul, taking care of all our inward parts.
As we enjoy the Lord’s shepherding in our soul, He can spread from the spirit into all our inward parts.
The result is that we will have joy unspeakable and full of glory.
As our pneumatic Shepherd, Christ takes care of us from within our spirit.
His shepherding begins from our spirit and spreads to every part of our soul (Eph. 3:17).
We can ask Him to spread into our mind, our emotion, and our will to shepherd us in every part of our inner being.
We need to let Him spread into our imaginations, our memories, our feelings, our desires, and our decisions.
We simply want to be an open vessel to the Lord so that His love and faith may be developed in us more and more, and our capacity to love the Lord and care for one another may develop.
From our spirit, Christ reaches all the parts of our soul and takes care of us in a tender, organic, all-inclusive way until He preserves our entire being – spirit, soul, and body – complete on the day of His coming.
He is tender with us; there’s nothing to fear.
He is all-inclusive in the way He shepherds us, and He is thorough in His shepherding.
Sooner or later He will reach the depths of our being, even every aspect of our inner being.
And He wants to do this now, before the age of the kingdom, so that He may make His home in all our hearts for the building up of the church.
May we open to the inward shepherding of the processed and consummated Triune God so that He may unite and mingle and incorporate Himself with us, His regenerated believers (2 Cor. 13:14; John 3:6; 14:20; Rom. 8:16).
May we see the Lord’s shepherding according to our experience and realize that His comforting, restoring, and caring is not in our body or our spirit but in our soul.
Many times we may speak of turning to our spirit, and we may expect that, once we turn to our spirit, everything will be all right.
However, we may discover that our soul has a lot of problems, even though we turn to our spirit.
We need to know and experience Christ as the Shepherd of our soul.
Our soul suffers, so our soul needs the Lord’s shepherding.
Sometimes in our mind, we wander very much and we may not know what to think about, for we are not able to direct our thoughts.
This indicates that our mind needs the Lord Jesus as our Shepherd; as we enjoy His shepherding, our mind is directed and set in the right way.
Our emotion is so complicated; it is easily upset, and it needs a lot of shepherding and comforting from the Lord as the Shepherd of our soul.
Similarly, our will needs the Lord’s shepherding, for many times we do not make the right choices, or we may not even make a choice.
We need the Lord to lead and guide us as the Shepherd of our soul.
We all can testify that we have experienced this; as the living Shepherd, the Lord continually directs our will. How good it is to just open to Him and tell Him,
Lord Jesus, we open to You as the Shepherd of our soul. We open our mind, emotion, and will to Your inward shepherding. You see how complicated we are in our mind, how troublesome our emotion is, and how stubborn is our will. Oh Lord, we want to be open vessels to You. We need You as the life-giving Spirit to shepherd us in our soul and take care of our mind, emotion, and will. We open to You concerning our problems, needs, and wounds. Only You can comfort us, care for us, and shepherd us in our soul. Come in, Lord, and heal us. Heal the wounds of our soul. Comfort us. Heal our wounds with the divine life and with the Spirit so that we may be restored in our soul. Spread from our spirit into every part of our soul; go wherever You want to go and fill us with Yourself. Reach all the parts of our soul and take care of us in a tender, organic, all-inclusive way. Lord Jesus, we love You and we open to You as the Shepherd of our soul!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ron Kangas in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of 1 Peter, msg. 21 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, An Overview of the Central Burden and Present Truth of the Lord’s Recovery Before His Appearing (2023 July Semiannual Training), week 6, entitled, Shepherding according to God.
- Similar articles on this topic:
– The Triumphant Ministry (3) – By shepherding the believers personally and ministering according to Brother Nee’s blueprint for the building of the church, Brother Lee ushered in a great revival in the church in Chefoo at the end of 1942. Read more via, Shepherding words.
– What is the Soul and How Does God Heal Soul Sickness? Read more via, Holding to Truth in Love.
– Allow the Lord to take over our mind, emotion, and will, a portion from, The Experience of Christ as Life for the Building Up of the Church, Chapter 4, by Witness Lee.
– The Lord Jesus Is Our Shepherd, article via, Bibles for America blog.
– Peter’s impression with the Lord’s commission to feed His lambs and shepherd His sheep, a portion from, Crystallization-Study of the Gospel of John, Chapter 13, by Witness Lee.
– A new song on, The Shepherd of Our Souls.
– The heavenly ministry of the ascended Christ in Ephesians, article by David Yoon in, Affirmation and Critique. - 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. / Perverse and foolish oft I strayed, / But yet in love He sought me, / And on His shoulder gently laid, / And home rejoicing brought me. (Hymns #528 stanzas 1-3)
– Jesus Himself is our pasture, / He is the food that we eat; / We as His sheep are fed richly / Each time, whenever we meet. / Dwell we here on a high mountain, / Wet with the morning-fresh dew, / Slaking our thirst at the fountain, / Water so living and new. (Hymns #1221 stanzas 3-4)
– My Shepherd Himself is my pasture, / My Shepherd, the waters of rest; / I eat of His riches in spirit, / I drink, and O how I am blest! / My Shepherd my soul is restoring, / My will, and emotion, and mind; / And though through the valley I’m walking, / O what a Companion I find! (Hymns #1170 stanzas 2-3)
About aGodMan
Life-study of 1 Peter, pp. 190-192, by Witness Lee
We need to know and experience Christ as the Shepherd of our soul.
He oversees our inward condition and cares for the situation of our inner being.
Because our soul is very complicated, we need Christ as the life-giving Spirit to shepherd us in our soul to take care of our mind, emotion, and will and all our problems, needs, and wounds.
Praise the Lord! 😃🙋🏽🙏 Amen!
Wonderful brother that he restores our soul in times of troubles. What a wonderful shepherd we have as believers we can call on his name and he leads us by quiet waters to lie down!
Hallelujah!😃
The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. he leads me to green pastures.
Positionally, we as sheep lack nothing. he leads us to green pastures.
Sheep are pretty simple animals, they eat and drink and follow.
And they are also soft and cuddly, if you had the experience of holding a sheep 🙂
Once in a while, one may go astray. But the Lord found us as a lost sheep and brought us back.
We don’t know what our need is, but the Lord knows; we need to go to our Shepherd, He knows our need.
We may have an erroneous idea of what shepherding is – it is not adjusting or correcting.
A shepherd doesn’t correct the sheep but takes care of them and feeds them to make them happy.
We need the Lord to make our soul happy, for if our soul is not happy and peaceful, full of joy, we can’t shepherd others. we need to take time to spend with the Lord, pour out our heart to Him, and open to Him.
Then, we will be happy in our soul and we will mutually shepherd one another. We just fellowship with others and shepherd them andthey shepherd us.
Each one of us are shepherded without intending to shepherd one another…it is mutual.
There’s an urgent need for the mutual shepherding in the church today.
I like to pray this prayer. Quite often we hurt others and we don’t realize that.
None of us wants to purposely to hurt others. We need to be poor in spirit with a learnign atttude toward the Lrod Himself.
We need to touch the Father’s loving and forgiving heart.
When we realize that we are the ones who nailed Him on the cross, yet He has forgiven all our sins; we touch Him, and we’re forgiven.
It is difficult to shepherd others without realizing that we have been forgiven.
He is the Shepherd and Overseer of our soul. If we read vv. 21-24 in this chapter, we realize that He died for all our sins.
Christ was our Redeemer in His death on the tree and now He is our soul’s Shepherd and Overseer in the resurrection life within us.
As such, He is able to guide us and supply us with life to comfort our spirit, to direct our mind, lead and move our will that we may follow in His steps according to the model of His suffering.
Listen to the audio version of this article via,
Amen Lord! Shepherd us Lord! We open our heart to You!
Amen Lord
How blessed we are to have Jesus as the Shepherd & Overseer of our soul.
Unbelievers wander in the wilderness of the soul because they do not have a shepherd take care of them. Our Lord takes care of our mind, emotion & will.
It’s our soul that needs shepherding.
This is something we need to bear in mind when shepherding others.
We need to pray for the Lord to show us what a person’s real need is and how to take care of their mind, emotion & will.
May we nourish the spirit and care for the soul.
Yes Lord do take care of our complicated soul! We come to you as opened vessels
We confess that we were like sheep led astray, but now we have returned to the Shepherd and overseer of soul – the pneumatic Christ – who is caring for our inward condition and overseeing our inner situation.
Hallelujah for Jesus our wonderful Shepherd!
Sometimes we are so wounded by saints in teh church life, and later we may forgive them.
But a long time after that, we may see them, and we are still wounded, and we may wonder,
We need to learn He’s the oil and wine, and we can tell Him,
Praise the Lord for our shepherd who takes care of us not only in our daily life but also in our church life and relationship with the saints.
What is the source of the shepherding? Is it our disposition, agenda, desire, or is it life?
We need to come back tot the Lord and drink Him as the river of life.
When we shepherd, we need to minister Him as life.
We need to be filled with life, and when we shepherd, we will overflow with life.
May the Lord fill us with life day by day.
Our main function and role in the Body is to shepherd; this is above working for God.
We may serve with so many practical things, but the first thing is shepherding.
Always have 2-3 under your care. Do we have 2-3 under our care in a regular way? Do we have mutual shepherding with one another?
The number is not our goal; Christ needs to be magnified on earth through His Body.
God is love, and shepherding is loving others. Paul said that the saints were his joy and crown.
Sometimes the ones we want to shepherd may not respond, and it hurts us. We need to keep feeding them.
It’s easy to be discouraged. Satan fights against this, and we are fighting a battle.
We are a mess; we need our pneumatic shepherd to care for us.
How can we shepherd others if we don’t have our wounds dealt with and we have unforgiven offenses?
We need Him to shepherd us and adjust anything that hinders us from having a happy heart.
How can you shepherd anyone if you’re miserable? This is so precious.
Shepherding is a living; it is not switched on for an occasion – it is a living.
Sheep ar not individual animals, they survive in groups; a sheep may be stuck on a cliff for a long time, but they need oen another.
Our shepherd is not something outward, but He’s in us.
We have to allow Him to work in us and on us, because when we allow Him, all the grievances we have against each other or the world, whatever it is, he’s able to work on that.
He’s not a spy, looking at us and judging us. His goal is to deal with all the issues we have in our soul, for when these are dealt with, we’re open, we are able to shepherd each other, for we’ve been there and we know, we understand.
May we be those who have constant transactions with Him, opening to Him whatever the issue is.
We need to allow God to shepherd our soul.
If we are not a person who doesn’t know and experience Christ as the Shepherd of our soul, how can we shepherd others?
We think that turning to our spirit,e verthing is sorted out.
But for sure, there is no problem in our spirit. So we need the Lord as the shepherd of our soul, for our soul is full of problem.
I was reminded that many times the Lord arranges situations we don’t understand why they happen, and why did He give them to us.
We may be hurt or wounded, and we keep turning to our spirit, yet the wound is still there.
Why? Because we didn’t allow Him to shepherd our soul and touch our wound and heal us. This is really, really sweet.
May we let Him love us. His shepherding is in love.
Our human mind is so limited, we can’t apprehend or appreciate what is in God’s heart.
So we need many dealings in our life, so many situations to learn. In this process, we really need to come to Him and tell Him,
Only He can heal us. We need to let Him heal us.
Shepherding has many aspects; we all are shepherds and we need to be shepherded by others.
The Shepherd is in our spirit and he shepherds our soul.
Our entire being has many issues, many problems.
We need someone who takes care of our soul and shepherd us.
Shepherding is very spontaneous, not something miraculous that needs to happen.
We need to be those who open our mouth and ask, How are you? Even those with a quiet disposition, even they can shepherd.
They can ask a brother or sister how are they doing. This is a tender shepherding.
We may have different concepts of what is shepherding…and we may have a preference who should shepherd us and who can shepherd us.
Every member of the Body has a portion and a function.
Shepherding is a learning; we are learning to shepherd.
Every member should and could shepherd one another – it is mutuality, for we have the Shepherd in our spirit.
Oh hallelujah, the Lord is the shepherd of our soul not our spirit! Very lovely to see.
So often we think telling someone to turn to their spirit is the answer but noooo the Lord is the shepherd of our soul!
Amen, we returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of our soul. Praise HIM!!
Our soul is naturally wandering without rest and peace. Therefore, from among our tripartite beings, as long as our spirit is mingled with His Spirit, it doesn’t need to be shepherding by the Lord. However, the life giving Spirit living in us will take care of our soul from being restless.
That is why our mind, soul, needs transformation just after regeneration of our spirit.
If our soul is entered into this long transformation process, our Lord can start shepherdinging our soul through life giving Spirit living in us.
Praise the Lord for keeping our soul from wondering in the wilderness.