The Lord Jesus Christ as the good Shepherd has formed the Jewish believers and the Gentile believers into one flock – the one church, the Body of Christ. God became a man and put on human nature, and He laid down His human life so that His sheep would receive and live by His divine […]
Christ Shepherds us by Being our Life and by Living in us; He Guides us into His Flock
The Lord Jesus is the good Shepherd, and He shepherds us by feeding us with Himself and in Himself as the pasture (see John 10:9-10). There are other shepherds, that’s true, but the Lord is the good Shepherd. He takes an all-inclusive tender care of His believers as His sheep. On the cross He tore […]
Christ Laid Down His Soul Life so that We may Enjoy His Divine Life for the Church
The entire Bible is a book of life, and the gospel of John in particular is a book focusing on God as life for God’s building. What is life? Life is the Triune God Himself. The Lord Jesus came that we may have life and may have it abundantly (John 10:10). He came that we […]
Christ as the One Grain Died to Produce us as the Many Grains in His Resurrection
One of the most overlooked and neglected truths in the Bible in general Christianity today is the revelation of Christ as the one grain-producing many grains in His resurrection for His Body, the loaf, to become the New Jerusalem (John 12:24). The Apostle John saw this lack and he stepped in to speak of the […]
Only Life Can Mend: Only the Ministry of Life in Love can Mend us to Build up the Church
Only life can mend. Only the mending ministry of life in love can mend us for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ. If we look around us we will see that both us and others have many problems, holes, lacks, and issues, and there are many broken hearts and broken […]
The Mending Ministry is More than Fixing a Hole; it Makes us Suitable for God’s Building
There’s a certain correlation between the occupation of those called by the Lord Jesus to follow Him and their future ministry in the Lord. When the Lord Jesus called Peter and Andrew, they were casting the net into the sea to catch fish (Matt. 4:18-20); Peter’s ministry was to catch men alive, to be a […]
John’s Ministry was a Mending Ministry (from a Son of Thunder to a Person of Life)
In a real and practical sense, the New Testament ministry is the completing ministry of Paul and the mending ministry of John. Peter, Jude, Luke, James, Mark, and others had also their portion, but the main ones are Paul with his completing ministry and John with his mending ministry. Paul unveiled to us the great […]