Today Christ as the Life-giving Spirit in our spirit is the Shepherd of our Souls

As we become the reproduction of Christ, we can experience and enjoy Christ as the Shepherd of our souls; He is the Shepherd of our souls, overseeing our inward condition, caring for the situation of our being, comforting us, and restoring our soul.

What a wonderful Shepherd we have! The Apostle Peter speaks of Christ, the Shepherd of our souls (1 Pet. 2:25).

When He died on the cross for us, He was our Redeemer; in His resurrection, He comes to us as the Shepherd of our souls.

Some say that the spirit and the soul can be used interchangeably, but this portion of the word clearly shows us that Christ came to shepherd our soul, which is different from our spirit.

Peter himself experienced the Lord’s shepherding, and in many of his experiences, we can relate to him, for he’s just like us.

Many times he said the wrong thing, right after he uttered the highest truth in the universe, and he was told off and exposed by the Lord so many times.

He saw a revelation of Christ as the Son of God, for he was granted a vision of the Christ, the Son of the living God.

But a few verses later, after being praised and appreciated by the Lord, Jesus told him, Get behind Me, Satan! Wow!

How did Peter feel at that time? It must have been a hard word for him to take in front of the disciples.

Then, right before the Lord Jesus was about to be captured and put to death, Peter makes that bold declaration that, even if everyone else denies the Lord, he will never do it.

But just a few hours later, he denied the Lord three times. And the dagger in the heart came when the rooster crowed, and the Lord turned and looked at Peter.

Peter saw that look. he went outside and wept bitterly. His last deed for the Lord was to deny Him three times before His death. Oh, Lord!

But then, in John 21, as we know the Lord came to shepherd his soul.

Peter experienced Christ as the Shepherd of our souls.

The Lord Jesus came to shepherd Peter’s soul.

He rekindled Peter’s love for the Lord and entrusted him with the commission of shepherding the Lord’s sheep and feeding His lambs, even as the Lord shepherded him and fed him.

We believers in Christ have a Shepherd; we have Christ as the Shepherd of our souls. It is not a small thing.

Our thoughts many times are wild, travelling everywhere and being unstoppable.

Our emotions are all over the place, and based on how we feel or what the environment is like, we are up or down.

And our will is so stubborn that no one can deal with it. How we thank the Lord that we have a Shepherd – Jesus Christ as the Shepherd of our souls!

As the Shepherd of our Souls, the Pneumatic Christ Oversees our Inward Condition and Cares for the Situation of our Inner Being

Our inner being is so complicated, but we have a Shepherd who takes care of our soul.

We need a shepherd to care for us regarding our thoughts.

We need a Shepherd for our mind, someone who can guide us with our thoughts and our concepts.

If someone says something to us, a great day becomes a bad day, for we go from high to low just like that. Just one word can ruin our whole week.

How we thank the Lord for being the Shepherd of our souls, the One who is the Spirit to oversee our inward condition, caring for the situation of our inner being!

The unbelievers also go through many things, and their soul is in deep need of shepherding, but they do not have a Shepherd for their souls.

Thank the Lord for coming to us as the Shepherd of our souls to lead us and guide us.

He leads us to the right place and guides us to the right location for us to enjoy and experience Him.

One example of the Lord shepherding us is His walking with two of His disciples down to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35).

They were troubled and sad regarding the Lord’s death and they were puzzled to hear that some of the women said the Lord resurrected, so the Lord joined them on their way and started speaking with them.

They walked seven miles together, and the Lord conversed with them; eventually, He expounded the Scriptures from Moses to the prophets to show them the things concerning Himself.

Their heart was burning within them, but they could not recognize Him.

Then, He acted as if He had to continue walking, but they convinced Him to stay with them, and over the dinner table when He blessed the bread, broke it, and gave it to them, they realized it was the Lord.

His reaction was to disappear from among them, and they immediately rose up and went back to Jerusalem to testify that they had seen the Lord.

So many times the Lord walks with us, going down to where we want to go, away from the church life or from the Lord, and He acts as if He doesn’t know what we go through or what we struggle with.

However, He as the Shepherd of our souls cares for us, opens our understanding, and infuses something of Himself into us.

When He speaks to us, when He shepherds us by caring for the situation of our inner being, our heart is restored, we are filled with hope, and we return to the Lord and to the church life.

We all can testify that the Lord does not leave us: He just walks with us as the Shepherd of our souls, and even though we may go astray and wander in our mind, he is there with us to shepherd our soul.

Christ’s organic shepherding primarily takes care of our soul (Psa. 23:3).

If He would come to us as God to take care of us and shepherd us, we would react like the Apostle John in Rev. 1 by falling on our face as dead, for we would be scared of death of God.

But the Lord went through a process, lived a life under the government of God, and now He is the Shepherd of our souls.

He became the God-man and then became the life-giving Spirit to come into our spirit and shepherd us from within.

He shepherds our soul from within us, caring for the inner condition of our being.

Christ shepherds us by caring for the welfare of our soul and by exercising His oversight over the condition of our inner being (see Heb. 13:17).

He knows where we are, He knows what is our need, and He cares for us as the Shepherd of our souls.

This kind of shepherding is an inward, intrinsic, organic comforting. It is so comforting to have Him as our Shepherd!

In John 14 the Lord said that He will ask the Father to send us another Comforter, and the Spirit came; now the Lord as the Spirit is our Shepherd.

How we love the Lord Jesus as the Shepherd of our souls!

Lord Jesus, thank You for coming in resurrection to be the Comforter, the Shepherd of our souls! Thank You, dear Lord, for not leaving us orphans but coming to us to be our Shepherd. We need You as the Shepherd of our souls! Oh Lord, only You know the situation in our mind, emotion, and will. Thank You for coming into our spirit through regeneration. We open to You. Shepherd us from within. We open every part of our being to You. We open to Your organic shepherding, for You know how to take care of our soul. We trust in You as the pneumatic Christ who oversees our inward condition and cares for the situation of our inner being! Amen, Lord Jesus, thank You for shepherding us by caring for the welfare of our soul. You know us from within, and You see the situation with our sou. We open to Your inner shepherding, for You exercise oversight over the condition of our inner being. Amen, Lord, we love You as the Shepherd of our souls!

How we need Christ as the Life-giving Spirit in our spirit to Shepherd us in our Soul!

Because our soul is very complicated, we need Christ as the Shepherd of our souls.

We need Christ, who is the life-giving Spirit, to shepherd us in our soul, to take care of our mind, emotion, and will with all our problems, needs, and wounds (John 14:16-17; 1 Cor. 15:45b; 6:17).

He wants to spread in our soul, occupy our soul, and saturate our soul with Himself, so He became the Shepherd of our souls.

He wants to make His home in our soul, but there are so many problems there, and there are many needs and wounds in our soul.

We have a lot of problems, needs, and wounds in our soul; we need the Lord as our Shepherd.

He comes in to take care of our problems and needs.

He comes in to pour oil and wine on our wounds. He knows our situation, He understands us thoroughly, and He is the dear Shepherd of our souls.

As our pneumatic Shepherd, Christ takes care of us from within our spirit.

His shepherding begins from our spirit and spreads to every part of our soul.

He is in our spirit, and from our spirit Christ reaches all the parts of our soul in order to take care of us in a tender, organic, and all-inclusive way. Doesn’t this melt your heart? He cares for our inner being.

The very Triune God who wants to make His home in us and possess every part of our being has come to be the Shepherd of souls to care for us and shepherd our inward parts.

Psalm 23 tells us concerning the Lord’s wonderful ministry as a Shepherd.

He guides us on the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake. He restores our soul. He revives, renews, transforms, and restores our soul.

How does He do it? As believers in Christ, we are learning to have a time with the Lord in the morning, a time of morning revival.

We struggle with this very much, for each one of us has their own set of situations and problems, and there are many interruptions.

It is a lifelong struggle for us to have a time with the Lord. We may be single and may be studying, but we’re so busy with our studies, that we struggle with our time with the Lord.

We may be working full time, and having a demanding job that starts very early, so we struggle even more with our time with the Lord.

We may get married and have one or more children, we struggle even more.

But we treasure our time with the Lord. We treasure spending time with the Shepherd of our souls.

As we come to the Lord in the morning to touch Him in a personal way, He speaks to us in His word.

His speaking and His shining restore our soul.

We have many problems, many needs, and many wounds, but we can open to Him and He restores us; He restores our souls.

May we take the initiative every day to come to the Lord and just spend time with Him.

May we come to Him with all our toils and burdens and receive rest from Him.

In spite of all the frustrations, all the things with our children, the school work, dishes, breakfast, job, traffic, our workmates, etc – we just want to spend time with our dear Shepherd!

He is the shepherd of our souls, and when we contact Him in His word, He restores our soul.

As we go through things in our daily life and we just open to Him, there’s no condemnation or criticism with Him; He simply understands us, cares for us, and restores us.

We need to fight for our being to be restored inwardly, for Christ to be formed in us and for Him to make His home in our heart.

Christ restores, revives, and transforms our soul (Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23), guiding us to walk according to the spirit on the paths of righteousness, so that we may fulfill the requirements of His righteousness (Rom. 8:4).

In order for us to be righteous, that is, to be right with God, man, matters, persons, and things, we need to be revived and transformed in our soul so that we may be proper and balanced in our mind, emotion, and will.

We are like sheep being led astray. So many things influence us, so many situations affect us, and so many people can cause us to be led astray and put down.

But praise the Lord, we have returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls!

He cares for us, He knows the situation and real condition of our soul, and He knows that we have many problems in us.

Many times when we come to the meetings of the church we sense how the Lord comforts our soul and restores us.

He restores our soul. We may not be willing to turn to Him or contact Him, but He comes and shepherds us, and we simply turn to Him and enjoy Him even more.

Lord Jesus, we want to enjoy and experience You as the Shepherd of our souls today. We return to You, dear Lord, as the Shepherd and Overseer of our soul. We open to You. You see our situation and You know the condition of our soul. Restore our soul. We don’t want to be like sheep that went astray; we come back to You again and again! Oh Lord, You see how complicated is our soul! We need You as the life-giving Spirit in our spirit to shepherd us in our soul! We open to Your shepherding, for You take care of our mind, emotion, and will with all our problems, needs, and wounds. Oh Lord, we love You! We open to Your shepherding from within us. We turn to our spirit and we open to You. May Your shepherding reach every part of our soul so that You may restore our soul. Yes, Lord, revive, transform, and renew our soul so that we may be restored in our soul today! We open to Your inner tender, organic, all-inclusive care as the Shepherd of our souls!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration for this article/sharing comes from the Word of God, the enjoyment in the ministry, a sharing by brother Ted Williamson in the message for this week, and portions from, Life-study of 1 Peter, pp. 190-192, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Living a Christian Life and Church Life under the Government of God for the Economy of God (2024 Thanksgiving Blending Conference), week 4, Becoming a Reproduction of Christ and Experiencing Christ as the Shepherd of Our Souls.
• Similar articles on this topic:
  – Five aspects of Christ – a portion from, Life-Study of 1 Peter, Chapter 22.
  – 1 Peter (Program #16) -Christian Life and Its Sufferings (1 & 3), via, Bible study radio.
  – What is the Life-giving Spirit? More via, The Hearing of Faith.
  – The Lord Jesus Is Our Shepherd, via, Bibles for America blog.
  – Christ being our life, food, water, breath, light, and abode, a portion from, Christ our Portion, Chapter 3, by Witness Lee.
  – My church life experience: how I was shepherded by the brothers and sisters, via, Living to Him.
  – Telling the Believers to Return to Christ as the Shepherd and Overseer of Their Souls, a portion from, Crystallization-Study of the Gospel of John, Chapter 13, by Witness Lee.
  – Restoring Fellowship in the Body of Christ, via, Shepherding Words.
  – We all need to know and experience Christ as the Shepherd of our souls (1 Pet. 2:25), via, Living to Him instagram.
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  – A pure heart – a sharing via, CSOC Texas youtube.
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  – How Psalm 23 Reveals the Organic Shepherding of the Pneumatic Christ, via, Holding to Truth in love.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – My Shepherd Himself is my pasture, / My Shepherd, the waters of rest; / I eat of His riches in spirit, / I drink, and O how I am blest! / 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 stanzas 2-3)
  – The Lord’s my Shepherd, I’ll not want; / He makes me down to lie / In pastures green; He leadeth me / The quiet waters by. / My soul He doth restore again, / And me to walk doth make / Within the paths of righteousness, / E’en for His own name’s sake. (Hymns #527 stanzas 1-2)
  – He understands you thoroughly; / There’s nothing He does not know. / All your problems and weaknesses / Don’t say it isn’t so! / He’s your Helper, sympathizing. / He’s the Spirit. Don’t neglect Him. / He’s praying for you / And sustaining you. / He gives support and comforts you, / Interceding night and day. / And when you’re weak He groans for you / With words you cannot say. / He’s the Spirit, interceding. / He’s the Spirit. Don’t neglect this / Wonderful One, / Who is praying for you. (New song on, He understands you thoroughly)