The Lord needs to have a new revival, the ultimate revival, which is not just a “flash in the pan” or some excitement that lasts for a little and fades out, but something solid and lasting, something that will close this age and bring the Lord back. What the Lord desires to gain is a group of people who see the vision of the age – the vision of God’s economy, live a God-man life as a reproduction of the life Jesus lived when on earth, and shepherd others according to God.
The new revival has three factors: seeing the high peak of the divine revelation and being governed and motivated inwardly by it, living the life of a God-man by allowing Christ to live in us today, and shepherding others according to God so that they may be brought under this vision, in this living, and in this function.
If we see the vision of the high peak of the divine revelation we will be energised, strengthened, and motivated, and our daily living will be under the governing of this vision; if we see the truth of God’s economy, our living will be affected.
We will realize that what the Lord desires is for us to be united, mingled, and incorporated with God so that we may live a life not by our flesh or in our natural man but the God-man life. Seeing the vision of God’s economy brings us into the adequate living in union with the Lord as the God-man.
All these issue in our being one with the Lord as the great Shepherd to shepherd others not according to our preference or in our natural way but according to God. The vision issues in a living, and the living issues in a practical shepherding in coordination with the Lord.
Christ in His heavenly ministry is busy as the great Chief Shepherd for the building up of the Body of Christ: He is cherishing the saints and nourishing them to grow in life and function in their measure for the building up of the Body of Christ.
He didn’t just shepherd those around Him when He was on earth: He is now even more the “pneumatic Shepherd” – the life-giving Spirit – in our spirit, and He is constantly shepherding us according to God by cherishing us in His humanity and nourishing us in His divinity.
Today we want to see more concerning the Lord’s pattern when He was on earth: how did He shepherd people when He lived on earth?
Christ as the Son of Man is Cherishing us and as the Son of God He’s Nourishing us
According to the Lord’s pattern, we need to shepherd people for the carrying out of God’s eternal economy. The Lord was moved with compassion when He saw the crowds, realizing they are like sheep without a shepherd (Matt. 9:36), and so He Himself came as the Good Shepherd, the One who lays down His life for the sheep so that the sheep may have life and may have it abundantly (John 10:10-11).
He is the great Shepherd of the sheep, and we as His people are His sheep (Heb. 13:20); He is the Chief Shepherd of our souls, and we need to cooperate with Him in His heavenly ministry to shepherd others according to God so that we may be rewarded by Him at His return (1 Pet. 5:4).
The One we are one spirit with right now is the Good, Great, and Chief Shepherd; he who joined to the Shepherd is one spirit (1 Cor. 6:17).
If we read the New Testament carefully we will see that the content of God’s entire New Testament economy in His complete salvation is Christ as the Son of Man cherishing us and as the Son of God nourishing us. He is the Head and we are His Body; just as we don’t hate our body but cherish it and nourish it, so Christ cherishes and nourishes the church, His Body (Eph. 5:29).
He cherished us in His humanity by becoming a man and dying for us on the cross so that we, through His judicial redemption, could be saved from God’s condemnation and be justified and approved. He is nourishing us as the Son of God giving us life and thus causing us to live because of Him.
We are now blessed if we wash our robes in the blood of the Lamb (this is His cherishing us in His humanity) so that we may have the right to eat the tree of life (this is His nourishing us in His divinity) – Rev. 7:14. The Lord’s shepherding is His cherishing us and nourishing us.
Christ as the Son of Man Cherishes us in His Humanity especially by Dying for us
Christ as the Son of Man came to redeem us from sin, accomplishing His judicial redemption through His death on the cross (1 Tim. 1:15; Eph. 1:7); this is the topmost cherishing. If we read the Gospels we see how all those around Him, especially the sinners and the tax collectors, liked to be with Him, eat with Him, and listen to His words (Luke 15:1; Matt. 9:10). He did not condemn the sinners but rather cherished them in His humanity.
The scribes and Pharisees, on the other hand, thought they are OK and thus were self-justified, but they didn’t know they needed the Lord as their Physician.
The four Gospels reveal the Lord Jesus Christ as the cherishing Son of Man to meet the need of every fallen sinner: He cleansed the lepers, gave sight to the blind, healed the sick, cast out demons, and even raised others from the dead.
One time a woman was so desperate to touch Him and be healed that she pressed through the crowd and touched His garments, and she was healed (Matt. 9:20-22). Everyone who needed Him could just approach Him and touch Him. His incarnation was His cherishing us, and His death on the cross for us was the greatest cherishing.
Through His redemption He brought us back to God, He justified us before Him, He forgave our sins, He washed away all our iniquities, He reconciled us to God, and He made us sons of God. Even now when we consider His redemption, we are cherished by Him and our heart is filled with love for Him.
Through His death and resurrection He became the life-giving Spirit, and now He is the pneumatic Shepherd to continue to cherish us, take care of us, and make us feel happy in Him so that we may be open to His nourishing, His impartation of life. How we love this wonderful Cherishing One!
Lord Jesus, we love You! Thank You for dying for us to redeem us, bring us back to God, reconcile us with God, and forgive our sins. Lord, thank You for constantly cherishing us in Your humanity day by day. We open to Your cherishing as the pneumatic Shepherd in our spirit. We turn our heart to You and we set our eyes on You to behold You, be infused with You, and be filled with You. Lord Jesus, we really really love You!
Christ as the Son of God Nourishes us by Imparting His Divine Life into us
Through His death and resurrection Christ became the life-givING Spirit (the Spirit who is constantly all-the-time and for eternity giving us life), and as the Son of God He is imparting His divine life into us abundantly, carrying out His organic salvation in His resurrection (see John 10:10; 1 Cor. 15:45).
Christ is cherishing us in His humanity so that He might nourish us in His divinity to impart His divine life into us abundantly. He is now the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ with our spirit (Phil.1 :19), and His nourishing of the saints produces the church, builds up the Body of Christ, and will consummate the New Jerusalem.
He cherishes us in His humanity so that we may be soft and open to His nourishing in His divinity, and as we open to Him, He richly dispenses His abundant divine life into us. Because of the degradation of the church, Christ as the life-giving Spirit has been intensified sevenfold so that He may sevenfold intensify His organic salvation to nourish us to produce us as His overcomers to end this age and bring in the age of the kingdom. Hallelujah!
Our wonderful Christ as the God-man is busy today as the life-giving Spirit to shepherd us by cherishing us in His humanity and nourishing us in His divinity so that we may be one with Him for the accomplishment of His economy.
He shepherds us so that we may also shepherd others. May we be those who enjoy Christ’s shepherding – His cherishing and His nourishing – so that we may be one with Him as the Son of Man and the Son of God in His heavenly ministry to dispense this wonderful One as life into others!
Lord Jesus, thank You for coming that we may have life and may have it abundantly. We open to You as a result of Your cherishing in Your humanity – fill us with life! Lord, carry out Your organic salvation in resurrection as the life-giving Spirit by constantly imparting the divine life into all the inward parts of our being. Lord, keep us under Your shepherding today. Make us one with You in Your heavenly ministry that we may also shepherd others according to God!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, brother Dick Taylor’s sharing in the message for this week, and The Vital Groups, msgs. 6, 9, 14 (by Witness Lee),as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Need for a New Revival, week 5 / msg 5, Shepherding according to God (1) Shepherding People by Cherishing and Nourishing Them according to the Pattern of the Lord Jesus and of the Apostle Paul.
- All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
- Hymns on this topic to strengthen this burden:
# O Lord, do cherish us, as on Thyself we feed; / Warm us so tenderly and meet our every need. / Our hardness soften, Lord, till we are Yours indeed; / Oh, cherish us, dear Lord, we pray. (Hymns #1135)
# You’re the One inside who cherishes me, / Feeding me with milk from Your holy Word, / Lord, You bring me just to feast upon You. / And You feed me richly… (Song on the Lord’s Cherishing)
# We must ever preach the gospel, / Cherishing and nourishing; / Loving them as our dear children, / As our priestly offering. (Song on Nourishing Others)
About aGodMan
God sent His Son as a propitiation for our sins in His humanity (1 John 4:10)—cherishing. As the Son of Man, Christ came to be the sin offering to appease the situation between the sinners and God….God sent His Son to us that we may have life and live through Him in His divinity (1 John 4:9)—nourishing. This is confirmed by John 3:16: God gave us His only begotten Son that we who believe into Him may not perish through His redemption in His humanity (cherishing) but may have eternal life in His divinity (nourishing). God gave His only begotten Son to redeem us in His humanity judicially so that we may have eternal life in His divinity for Him to save us organically.
Christ as the Son of Man came to redeem us from sin (1 Tim. 1:15)—cherishing. This is the first part of the New Testament.
Christ as the Son of God came to impart the divine life into us abundantly (John 10:10)—nourishing. This is the second part of the New Testament. (Witness Lee, The Vital Groups, pp. 82, 86-87)