The Lord Jesus is the Shepherd according to God; He is the Chief Shepherd, the Shepherd of our souls, and the eternal Shepherd taking care of the inward condition of our soul. Hallelujah for our Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ!
The only way that we can shepherd others according to God is by enjoying His shepherding day by day and learning from Him, being one with Him, and allowing Him to shepherd others through us. Praise the Lord for our Shepherd!
Christ is the good Shepherd, the great Shepherd, the Chief Shepherd, the Shepherd of our souls, and even for eternity He will forever shepherd us and guide us to pastures and streams of water of life.
God created us in such a way that we need shepherding, and He is the Shepherd to us.
First, He came as the good Shepherd and laid down His life for the sheep; He came as the real Shepherd, the Good Shepherd, and He came so that we may have life and may have it abundantly.
But we were scattered, divided, and lost, so as the good Shepherd He sought us out, He laid His soul-life down for us, and He poured out His divine life for us as His sheep to be enlivened, fed, nourished, and brought to Him as His flock.
Christ as the Good Shepherd laid down His human life to accomplish redemption so that we as His sheep may share His divine life. Hallelujah!
As the Lord’s sheep hear His voice, they follow Him out of any fold and He takes them to the pasture, to waters of rest, and to the place of His choice; He takes all-inclusive, tender care of the flock.
Christ is also the great Shepherd of the sheep; He has been raised from the dead by God in the blood of an eternal covenant, and He executes and carries out all the bequests of the new covenant for us to enjoy.
As believers in Christ, we are covenanted people; God has promised many things to us, He covenanted many rich and wonderful bequests, and Christ in His resurrection and ascension makes sure that all these bequests are being applied to us, are enjoyed by us, and we have a way to experience them.
We may forget about all the riches and the blessings in the new covenant, but our great Shepherd doesn’t; He makes sure we enjoy all these riches, and under His shepherding, we enter into the experience and enjoyment of all that Christ is, has, has accomplished, has done, and has promised to us.
What a Shepherd we have!
Christ as the Chief Shepherd shepherds His flock through the Elders of the Churches
In 1 Pet. 5:4 we see that the elders are set by the Lord to be those who shepherd the flock of God according to God; Christ is the Chief Shepherd, and it is through the elders that He shepherds His flock, the church.
Besides Christ as the Shepherd, there are many other lower case “shepherds”, in this case, the elders, who need to shepherd the flock of God according to God.
When Peter wrote his first epistle, what he had in view was the Christian life under the government of God. He was freshly impressed with the Lord’s word and commissions in John 21 when He told him, Feed My lambs, Shepherd My sheep.
Yes, the Lord as the pneumatic Shepherd (the Shepherd in resurrection) is shepherding His sheep, but He also needs some on earth who cooperate with Him.
Paul addressed the elders, as he himself was also an elder, and told them that their primary function is to shepherd the flock of God among whom God has placed them (see Acts 20).
God didn’t put the elders over the flock of God but among the flock; they are mere sheep, leading sheep, and they take the lead to cooperate with the Lord’s heavenly ministry to shepherd the fellow sheep into the enjoyment of God.
We as the fellow sheep need to honor and respect and be one with the elders wherever the Lord has put us, and we need to realize that, from the point of view of the ministry, if elders don’t shepherd others according to God, then what they are doing is almost meaningless.
The primary function of an elder is to shepherd the fellow sheep of God. For example, if a father does many things for his children except being a father to them, no matter how many nice things he buys them, he fails at being a father.
According to 1 Pet. 5:2, without the elders’ shepherding, the church cannot be built up. How blessed is any local church where the elders are known and manifested not mainly by their gifts or eloquence but by their shepherding!
At any cost, day or night, the elders need to shepherd the saints, and they need to be one with the Lord to be ready to shepherd.
But what a sad situation it is and how tragic it is when there are local churches where there’s no shepherding from the leading ones or from the elders!
May we pray for those that the Lord has put in the lead and may we all learn to shepherd one another by shepherding others according to God.
May we look to the Lord for Him to raise hundreds of more saints who shepherd others according to God in all the churches! And may our shepherding be Christ’s shepherding through us!
Thank You, Lord, for being the Chief Shepherd who shepherds His flock through the elders of the churches. We thank and praise You, Lord, for being the One who is so one with the leading brothers to shepherd all the saints. May all the leading brothers and the elders exercise their function of shepherding, caring for the souls of the saints and overseeing the flock of God to render them a tender care according to God. Amen, Lord, bless all Your local churches all over the earth with much mutual shepherding, much enjoyment of the shepherding of Christ, and of the shepherding of one another according to God! May we all allow Christ to shepherd others through us.
Christ as the Shepherd of our Souls oversees our Inward Condition and Cares for the Situation of our Inner Being
Praise the Lord, Christ is the Shepherd of our souls (1 Pet. 2:25) to care for the situation of our inner being and oversee our inward condition!
Even though we all have gone astray, the Lord comes to shepherd our soul and bring us back to Himself.
Even though daily we still go astray, in various ways and for certain periods of time, He comes not to threaten us, rebuke us, or chastise us; He comes to oversee our inward condition, caring for the inward situation of our being.
The Lord is the Shepherd of our souls; He knows what’s taking place in our mind, emotion, and will, and He cares for us.
Christ as the Shepherd of our souls is in our mingled spirit, and He cares for the real condition of our inward being.
This is good news: right now the pneumatic Shepherd is in our spirit, and He is the overseer; He is not spying on us, He’s not keeping a record of all the naughty things we have done to build a case against us, and He is not criticizing or judging us – He is watching over us to care for us all the time.
Christ as the Shepherd of our souls knows what we’re feeling, why do we feel this way, and what we need in that particular part of our soul.
Christ shepherds us by caring for the welfare of our soul and by exercising His oversight over the condition of our inner being. He’s aware of the condition of our inner being, and based upon that awareness, He shepherds us, rendering all-inclusive, tender care.
Our soul is very complicated, so we need Christ, who is the life-giving Spirit in our spirit to shepherd us in our soul; He takes care of our mind, emotion, will, and He cares for our problems, needs, and wounds.
He knows where we are and what we need; He knows the real condition of our being, and He knows that we may still suffer from wounds that afflicted us many years ago.
He truly understands our soul, He knows why is it so hard for us to love someone or trust someone; He knows it’s not easy for us to open to someone because of our wounds, so when He comes in, He knows when and what to do so that our problems, needs, and wounds are fully taken care of.
And He is thorough, exact, and detailed; when He begins an endeavor in us, He will see it through, and we inwardly rejoice that He is the Shepherd of our souls caring for the welfare of our inner being! Hallelujah!
Christ is the Shepherd of our souls to restore our soul and give us rest in our soul; He is our Shepherd, He guides our soul to waters of rest for His name’s sake (Psa. 23:3), and He gives us rest in our soul whenever we come to Him with all our toils and burdens (Matt. 11:28-30).
He calls us, again and again, to come to Him – all those who labor, are exhausted, and are worn out, those who endeavor to do so much, accomplish so much….just come to Him, for He as the Shepherd of our souls is meek and lowly in heart, and we will find rest for our souls.
As the Shepherd of our soul, He shepherds us by caring for the welfare of our inner being and by exercising His oversight over the condition of our real person.
He knows that our problems are mainly in the soul; we do have problems in our body, but it is mainly the soul that has problems and suffering.
So He comes in to shepherd our mind, emotion, and will; He directs our thoughts, He comforts our emotion, and He leads and guides us in our will.
He is the living Shepherd, leading us and guiding us all the time; He knows the real condition of our mind, emotion, and will, and He shepherds us day by day.
Thank You, Lord, for being the Shepherd of our souls who oversees our inward condition and cares for the situation of our inner being. You understand what’s going on in our mind, emotion, and will, and You know how to best care for us. We open to Your inward shepherding, dear Lord Jesus. Thank You for caring for the welfare of our soul and for exercising Your oversight over the condition of our inner being not to judge us or condemn us but to care for us and lead and guide us in Your ways and into Your enjoyment. Oh Lord, our soul is so complicated: we need You as the life-giving Spirit in our spirit to shepherd us in our soul and take care of our mind, emotion, and will! Amen, Lord, we come to You with all our problems, needs, and wounds, and we just open to Your shepherding so that You may restore our soul and give rest to our soul!
In Eternity Future, Christ will be our Eternal Shepherd Guiding us to Springs of Water of Life
The Lord’s shepherding is not only for this age; it continues for eternity!
In Rev. 7:16-17 we are told that Christ will shepherd us by guiding us to springs of the water of life.
For eternity future we will still need His shepherding; we will be His wife, living a married life together with Him, and He will still come to us as the eternal Shepherd to bring us into the experience of the water of life as never before!
There’s no repeats, reruns, or left-overs with Him – there’s an eternal shepherding, and there’s the drinking of the springs of water of life!
We will no longer have problems, for all negative things will be in the lake of fire, but He will still guide us to springs of water of life.
Christ as our eternal Shepherd will lead us into Himself as the springs of waters of life so that we may enjoy the eternal dispensing of the Triune God.
We will forever depend on the dispensing of the Triune God, and this is such a shepherding to us.
We will forever live in the principle of the tree of life, which is depending on the Lord; the more we grow in the Lord, the more we mature in Him, the more we dependent we will be on Him.
Eventually, we will get to a point where we live by Him breath by breath; He will be not only our food and water but also our very breath.
Christ is inexhaustible, He is beyond measure, and He will continue to shepherd us into Himself!
In this age, He is the Shepherd of our souls taking care of the welfare of our inner being, and for eternity He will guide us to streams of living water!
We will be supplied with the water of life, and all our tears will be wiped away!
He will wipe away all the tears from our eyes; this is delicate and tender, for He knows what our tears mean, and He has already dealt with the cause of those tears, so they are wiped away.
The water of tears will be wiped away and the only waters left are the waters of life. Hallelujah, under Christ’s shepherding in eternity, there will be no tears, no hunger, and no thirst – there will only be enjoyment!
For eternity we will only enjoy Christ, experience Christ, and be richly supplied with all that He is; He as the eternal Shepherd will continually guide us to springs of waters of life.
Lord Jesus, we love You! We praise You that, for eternity, You will be our eternal Shepherd who guides us to springs of waters of life! Hallelujah, You will wipe away all our tears and You will guide us into the enjoyment of Yourself for eternity! Amen Lord, keep us under the divine dispensing every day until, in eternity future, we will continually enjoy the eternal dispensing of the Triune God! Keep us drinking of You as the living water today until one day all our tears will be wiped away and we will continually drink of the living water! We praise You Lord for being our Shepherd today and our eternal Shepherd for eternity! Hallelujah!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Sources of inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ron Kangas 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, Crystallization Study of Jeremiah and Lamentations, week 11, Shepherds according to God’s Heart.
- Hymns on this topic:
– The Lord is my Shepherd forever, / He maketh me down to lie, / He leads me beside the still waters / O how He does satisfy! / 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)
– The risen Christ my Shepherd is. / He graciously my soul doth feed. / My Christ is mine, and I am His. / How can I lack or e’er have need? / In pastures green He makes me lie. / My soul He satisfies always, / The restful water leads me by, / In fellowship and perfect peace. (Song on, The risen Christ my Shepherd is)
– For the Lamb who is in the midst / Of the throne / Will shepherd them and guide them / To springs, to springs, / Springs of waters of life; / And God will wipe away / Every tear, every tear / From their eyes. (Scripture song)
About aGodMan
