Being Metabolically Constituted with God to Live God and Shepherd According to God

Shepherding according to God – as the Lord Jesus and Paul did in their living and ministry – is by first becoming one with God, being constituted with God, living God, expressing God, representing God, and ministering God so that we may be God in function in shepherding others. It is one thing to feel compassion for someone and care for them, encourage them to go on with the Lord, and be with them in tough times, and it is something completely different to shepherd according to God.

The Lord Jesus as the good Shepherd is in our spirit today shepherding us by living in us and by arranging all things and situations around us for our growth in life and transformation. As the pneumatic Shepherd in our spirit, the Lord wants us to be one with Him in shepherding others: in His heavenly ministry, He is shepherding the saints, and we need to be one with Him to shepherd the saints. Furthermore, we need to be constituted with God essentially and inwardly so that we may live God and our living would be a shepherding of others.

We shepherd others by cherishing them and nourishing them; if we are not constituted with God, we will shepherd others according to our natural preference and with our natural constitution, and the result is not the building up of the church as the Body of Christ. We need to be one with God and have God’s nature, be infused with His desire, shepherd others in His way and for His glory, and not try to shepherd others according to our preference, carrying out our interest and purpose, and according to our disposition.

Today we would like to see that in order for us to shepherd others according to God we need to be constituted with God so that we may live God.

Shepherding According to God Requires that we are Constituted with God to Live God

Shepherding according to God requires that we are constituted with God so that we may live God. Even though shepherding is our function, this function issues from our being and our living. We cannot shepherd others according to God if we are not constituted with God; if we still live in our natural man and from time we check “what would Jesus do?” we do not shepherd others according to God.

God desires to dispense Himself into our being so that our being may be constituted with His being to be one constitution with His being; He wants to make His home in our heart and fill us with Himself as the Spirit so that we may be the Body of Christ (see Eph. 3:17; 4:4-6; Col. 3:10-11). The essence of the Body is the Spirit; when we are filled with the Spirit and allow the Lord to make His home in our heart, we are being constituted with His element inwardly.

As the Divine Being, God infuses us with His element, causing us to be the same as He is in life and nature but not in the Godhead (2 Cor. 13:14). The way God accomplishes His economy is by dispensing Himself into our being so that we may be constituted with His element and become the same as He is in life, nature, expression, and function – and this function is the shepherding according to God. We need to pay attention to enjoying the Lord, eating Him, drinking Him, and feeding on Him so that He may water us, feed us, refresh us, and nourish us.

Every day we need to eat the Lord to be constituted with Him. We are what we eat, and we express what we’re constituted with; we need to eat the Lord, drink Him, and be constituted with Him, and we will live Him out. We need to eat the Lord as the Spirit in His word by taking in the word of God by means of all prayer and petition. The secret of the God-man living and shepherding according to God is eating the Lord to live because of Him, just as Jesus ate the Father and lived because of Him (John 6:57).

It is not a small thing to pray-read the word of God; by praying over God’s word with the exercise of our spirit in all kinds of prayers we actually eat the Lord, and this produces a constitution in us. The Lord as the Spirit is embodied in His word, and the words He speaks to us when we turn our heart to Him and pray over His word with the exercise of our spirit are Spirit and are life (John 6:53). We need to read God’s word, apply His word to our being, and pray with the word of God so that we may extract, touch, enjoy, and be filled with the Spirit and with life.

If we daily pray-read the word of God, there will be a constitution of God in our being, and we will live God – we will live what we’re constituted with, and this will be a shepherding to others according to God. If we are serious about being constituted with the Lord, we will eat Him, and we will overcome the devil as He did (Matt. 4:4) and live a life of expressing God to shepherd others according to God.

Lord Jesus, we give ourselves to You to be constituted with You by eating You in Your word. Dispense Yourself into our being so that our being may be constituted with Your being. Lord, infuse us with Your element and cause us to become the same as You are in life and nature but not in the Godhead. We want to eat You, drink You, breathe You in, digest You, and be constituted with You so that we may live You and shepherd others according to You!

Being Metabolically Constituted with God to Live God and Shepherd According to God

Our daily living is something spontaneous, not something deliberate or planned. We live according to what we are and where we are, and we live out our constitution. Once we are constituted with God, we will spontaneously have a certain kind of living that matches our constitution – we will live God. In our daily living we don’t make conscious deliberate decisions about what we say and do – many things just happen; living just happens.

God’s way is not to outwardly correct us, adjust us, and improve us so that we may express Him a little more today – this would be the way of applying makeup to someone’s face. God’s way is to transform us metabolically by coming into us to reconstitute us inwardly with Himself so that we may live out God spontaneously.

God is not trying to teach us how to imitate Christ outwardly so that He may have a group of people who do their best to live like Christ; He wants to nourish us, water us, and infuse us with all His riches into our inner being until we are constituted with Him and even filled with Him to live Him out.

There is a great difference between God’s economy and the natural human concept. Our concept is that after we are saved we should make up our minds to improve our behavior. Probably every genuine Christian has made such a decision. According to our concept, we need to improve ourselves. Conscious of our weakness, we beg God to help us. However, God does not answer this kind of prayer. The more we pray that He will help us to improve, the less He will do. On the contrary, our behavior may even worsen. The reason for this is that the concept of receiving help from God to improve our behavior is contrary to God’s economy. God’s economy is to dispense Himself into us and to work Himself into us that we may take Him as our life and life supply in order to live Him. This is not to have an improved human character; it is to live God. According to His economy, God’s intention is to impart His element, His substance, and the ingredients of His nature into our being that we may live Him. (Life-study of Philippians, pp. 324, 323)

WWJD does not work; by the time we ask ourselves this question when we are about to do something, we already did something not according to God. When he was stoned to death, Stephen did not ask himself, What Would Jesus Do in my situation now as I’m dying….? Rather, he was so filled with Christ and constituted with Him that he was one with Him to speak what He spoke when He was on the cross.

God’s economy is to work Himself into us so that we may receive Him as our life and life supply in order to live Him (John 11:25; 6:48, 57). We need to eat the Lord, take Him as our life supply, and be reconstituted metabolically with Him so that we may live God and shepherd others according to God.

Lord Jesus, save us from our natural concept of asking You to improve us and help us to be better Christians. Lord, dispense Yourself into us and work Yourself into us so that we may take You as our life and life supply, be constituted with You, and live You. We want to pay the price to be constituted with God organically and metabolically so that we may spontaneously live out God and shepherd others according to God.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, brother M.R’s sharing in the message for this week, and Life-study of Jeremiah, msg. 32 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Need for a New Revival, week 6 / msg 6, Shepherding according to God (2) Becoming One with God, Being Constituted with God, Living God, Expressing God, Representing God, and Ministering God to Shepherd according to God.
• All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
• Hymns on this topic to strengthen this burden:
  # Into our innermost / Intrinsic constitution, / Come, Lord, Yourself dispense / By constant, fresh infusion; / Transform us, Lord, and work Yourself, / As God’s embodiment, / Into our heart, and life each part, / With Your reality. (Song on being Constituted with God)
  # We have found the way to live by Christ— / Pray His Word and call His name! / This—the eating, drinking—has sufficed / And its worth we now proclaim. (Hymns #1153)
  # Thou in the Word art the Spirit and life, / Thus by the Word I may feed upon Thee; / Thou dost as Spirit in my spirit live, / Thus I may drink in the spirit of Thee. (Hymns #811)