Paul’s writing and expression toward the believers was tender and filled with the intimate concern of the ministering life; he didn’t just rebuke or exhort, but he wept, he exhorted with tears, and he was intimately concerned for the saints.
Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet; we could say that by nature he was tender, timid, and prone to weep and feel things, but as we read his book we realize that much more was there. In the book of Jeremiah we see that Jehovah put His Spirit upon him and He put His feelings in Jeremiah’s spirit; therefore, he could express the sorrowful feeling of God.
Jeremiah didn’t just weep because he felt so sad for the chastising of his people; he wept and wailed because he was one with God, and God Himself was weeping and wailing.
All human beings have this capacity to weep, and some are more prone to weep than others; some, however, are so strong in themselves and they would never shed a tear, no matter what would happen around them or to them.
In our soul we shed tears, and in our natural emotions we feel sorrowful and may even weep.
But through regeneration we have another person living in us; Jesus Christ as the Spirit lives in our spirit, and He has become mingled with us to be our inner man.
We need to be strengthened into our inner man so that Christ may make His home in our heart; when Christ is at home in us, His feelings become our feelings, His emotions are our emotions, and we can weep when He weeps over the situation and conditions of others.
Because of the fall of man, our soul is saturated and permeated with the evil element of Satan to be the self, the I independent from God; but when we’re strengthened into our inner man, our inner becomes our person, and the soul becomes an organ for expression.
God wants to be expressed through man; He wants man not only to contact Him and receive Him in spirit, but also to express Him through his soul.
There is a big difference between someone being in themselves and expressing a certain feeling, and allowing the Lord to live in them and express His feelings through them.
The Lord needs vessels on earth who are fully open to Him, those who allow Him to deal with, train, and discipline their feelings and emotions, so that His feelings would be expressed through man’s feelings, and the soul of man would be an organ of expressing the Lord mingled with man’s spirit, the inner man.
So we not only need to weep or shed tears – we need to have our emotions disciplined and trained by the Lord, so that in our expression we would express the Lord and not ourselves.
May we learn to open to the Lord and allow Him to discipline us and restrict us in our emotions so that His feelings would be expressed through us.
May we take the lead today especially in our personal, daily life to open to Him, let Him infuse Himself into us, and allow Him to have access to our inner feelings, emotions, wants, desires, and yearnings, for Him to saturate our inner parts with Himself.
May our feelings match His feelings, may our disposition be an expression of His disposition, and may our expression be Him being lived out in us in all things and especially when we speak to others.
The Pattern of Paul as one Filled with the Intimate Concern of the Ministering Life
In the Old Testament we see that Jeremiah matched God’s feelings toward His people, and his emotions and weeping, even his attitude and tears, matched God’s feeling and attitude entirely.
In the New Testament we have another pattern of such a person, which is Paul; Paul’s expression was tender and filled with the intimate concern of the ministering life (2 Cor. 11:28; 12:15).
If we read the book of 1 Corinthians we may say that Paul was sharp and severe, exposing the many problems among the Corinthian believers and administrating the solution (which is the enjoyment of Christ and the cross).
But when we read 2 Corinthians we see that he wrote “out of much affliction and anguish of heart” and “through many tears”, “not that you would be be made sorrowful but that you would know the love which I have more abundantly toward you” (2 Cor. 2:4).
In his first epistle he wrote to the Corinthian believers based on what he heard from the household of Chloe about the condition of the Corinthian believers; he pointed out all their mistakes, he rebuked them, and his word was severe and frank.
But now in his second Epistle he told them how he wrote such words; he was not angry or upset with them but rather, he did it out of much affliction and anguish of heart, and he himself shed many tears.
He wrote such a piercing words because he loved them.
While he was writing these strong words in his first Epistle, he was doing it in tears; before he spoke, he himself felt the pain.
He didn’t merely rebuke them, expose their mistakes, and told them off; rather, he himself felt the piercing of the word and was made sorrowful, and he had the intimate concern of the ministering life.
He wanted to minister Christ to them, he was intimately concerned for the believers, and he loved them to the extent that he shed tears, he was made sorrowful, and from such an attitude and situation he wrote to them the way he did.
What a pattern he was to us all; his expression was tender and filled with the intimate concern of the ministering life.
Especially in 2 Cor. 7:2-3 we see that he conveyed a deep, tender, and intimate concern for the Corinthian believers, and his word was very touching.
He was not condemning them; rather, the believers were in his heart for their dying together and their living together, for he didn’t take advantage of them, he didn’t condemn them, but he expressed his intimate concern of the ministering life.
He had an intimate relationship with them and wept for them, shedding tears before the Lord concerning their situation, and gave them a frank word, even a piercing word, so that they may be brought back to God and be fully reconciled to Him.
On one hand his words were frank, piercing, and straightforward, but on the other hand, his heart was for them, he was feeling sorrowful for them, and he desired them to be consoled and encouraged to go on positively with the Lord after being reconciled to Him.
May we learn from the pattern of Paul and may we open to the Lord so that He would make us such ones who bring the saints before Him, weep for them, feel sorrowful for the backslidden ones, and have the intimate concern of the ministering life.
Then, whatever we would say would be in oneness with the Lord for Him to gain them and restore them.
Lord Jesus, may our expression be that of an intimate concern of the ministering life. May we learn to be one with You and to allow You to deal with our emotions, train and discipline our feelings, and infuse Your concern, feelings, and emotions into us. Save us from rebuking others or pointing out their faults when we see that they sin or backslide; give us Your concern for them, Your heart for their being, and Your feelings for what they are going through and what they need. Oh Lord, we love You, we open to You, and we allow You to work on us until our expression is that of an intimate concern of the ministering life!
Caring for others, even Shedding Tears for them, out of an Intimate Concern of the Ministering Life
What makes us useful to the Lord in saving people and shepherding them to continue with the Lord is not mainly our ability, our knowledge, or even our zeal; it is our intimate concern.
We may have the ability to work for the Lord and do many things; however, if we lack an intimate concern, our work will be fruitless.
It is the same in the family life and in the church life; if we lack an intimate concern of the ministering life, we will not have a fruitful and proper family life and church life.
But if we have the proper concern for people, if we have a heart for them, we are well on our way to be qualified to be used by God for their salvation.
A crude and insensitive person doesn’t have an intimate concern; if a husband doesn’t have a proper concern for his wife, he may be very strict and demanding of her without having any feeling about it.
But when we have an intimate concern, we will be tender and soft, and our speaking will be sweet and for building up.
If we see or hear of a brother or sister backsliding, would we weep like Paul did?
The sisters may be able to weep, but what about the brothers? Or are we ready to say a word of correction, a word of exhortation, or a word of rebuking?
May we learn from the Lord Jesus and also from the apostle Paul to have an expression that is tender and filled with the intimate concern of the ministering life.
We all can testify that there are some saints in the church life who, even in the way they ask us how are we doing and how is our family doing, we feel the intimate concern.
Even in a short conversation with others, if we allow the Lord to deal with our emotions and feelings and grant us the intimate concern of the ministering life, we can minister something of Christ while caring for others.
It should matter to us concerning the saints, concerning their situation, and concerning their family and the things happening with them; we shouldn’t be interested in the saints’ and their situation merely out of curiosity or seeking to know more information but out of intimate concern.
Are we willing to have a deep, tender, and intimate concern for the saints? We shouldn’t try to work this out in us or change ourselves, but let the Lord do this in us.
May we open to the Lord and ask Him to work in us an intimate concern so that we may minister life to others out of love and concern for them.
When this takes place, our expression will be tender and filled with intimate concern, and it will have impact, touching others deeply.
Before we say something to others, before we exhort others, we ourselves need to feel the pain and weep, shedding tears, and then we are qualified to speak.
How we thank and praise the Lord that His blood was shed on earth and was not retracted.
How we thank Him that we can receive salvation through His blood, and He never regrets this or retracts this.
How we thank Him that the tears of the Lord Jesus were not retracted, telling us how mindful He is of us, and inducing us to shed tears before God and before men, for such a One lives in us!
Lord Jesus, we open to You and we allow You to work in us to give us an intimate concern of the ministering life. Thank You Lord for dying for us, shedding Your blood for us, and weeping for us; thank You for just pouring Yourself out for us out of love and concern for us. We open to You and we tell You that we are willing for You to develop in us a deep, tender, and intimate concern for others, so that we may minister life to them out of the intimate concern that You work out in us. May our expression be tender and filled with the intimate concern of the ministering life in our daily life and in the church life.
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, Collected Works of Watchman Nee, vol. 19, pp. 496-497, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization Study of Jeremiah and Lamentations, week 1, Jeremiah, the Tenderhearted Prophet of the Tenderhearted God.
- Hymns on this topic:
– I love the Church, O God! / Her walls before Thee stand, / Dear as the apple of Thine eye / And graven on Thy hand. / For her my tears shall fall, / For her my prayers ascend; / To her my cares and toils be given / Till toils and cares shall end. (Hymns #853)
– O yes, He cares, I know He cares, / His heart is touched with my grief; / When the days are weary, / The long night dreary, / I know my Savior cares. (Hymns #695)
– For me it was in the garden, / He prayed: “Not my will, but Thine.” / He had no tears for His own griefs, / But sweat-drops of blood for mine. (Hymns #290)
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