This week in our prayerful consideration of propagating Christ we come to the matter of, Shepherding the Flock of God according to God by Being Patterns of the Flock, and today in particular we want to see what it means to shepherd according to God’s desire.
The Christ we propagate is not only the incarnated and crucified Christ so that people would be saved, be brought out of poverty and sin and their pitiful condition….
Many have preached the gospel throughout the centuries, doing their best to save people and bring them to heaven, but who has seen the fact that God has a desire, and who has preached the gospel and shepherded people according to God’s desire?
Yes, man has a need, but God has even a greater need – He needs to be reproduced, to be propagated, so that His kingdom on earth would be established. God in Christ wants to be everything to us so that He may be propagated through us for the bringing forth and development of the kingdom of God.
We need to no longer preach the shallow gospel in Christianity but the full and complete gospel, the gospel from the viewpoint of God’s economy. And the preaching of the gospel is not the end point – it is only a part of the shepherding according to God so that people may be brought into go and made one with God for His purpose.
What we are doing is not trying to spread Christianity by helping people get saved but as propagate the resurrected, ascended, and all-inclusive Christ as the development of the kingdom of God.
We need to preach the gospel and announce the good news, but after people receive the Lord, what should they do? Many evangelists have preached the gospel to stadiums full of thousands of people, and after many of these received the Lord, they told them to go to the church of their choice. Oh Lord Jesus!
In God’s economy for the propagation of Himself as the kingdom of God, we not only preach the gospel to bring people to the Lord, but we also shepherd people according to God, shepherding them according to the God’s desire to bring them into the proper church life as God’s kingdom.
The gospel preaching is the first step of our shepherding – we shepherd people by ministering the gospel to them, and then, after they receive the gospel, we need to continue to feed them, cherish them, nourish them, and teach them, perfect them, and build them up.
All these are part of the shepherding needed to carry out the propagation of Christ.
What God desires is not just to get people out of perdition and bring them to heaven; He wants to propagate Himself, to spread Himself in Christ through His disciples and witnesses on earth so that He may gain an enlargement, the church as the Body of Christ.
To propagate God in Christ is to spread Him into people so that He may increase and have an enlargement. The key to our practice of propagating Christ is shepherding. We must shepherd the others according to God.
We don’t need to have mission boards, organised evangelical activities, but we need to have witnesses who are one with God to propagate Him by allowing Him to flow through them.
Shepherding According to God is Shepherding the Flock According to God’s desire out of Love for Him
In his word to the elders in 1 Pet. 5:1-4, Peter said that they should shepherd the flock of God according to God. This means that we need to shepherd according to God’s desire, His feeling, and according to what God is.
We must have God on hand, we must be one with God, we must live God, and we must even become God in our shepherding of others. We may have God in our theology and understanding, but we may not be fully one with God.
To shepherd according to God is to shepherd according to what God is – He is light, love, holiness, and righteousness, and we must shepherd others according to these attributes of God.
Even more, we need to shepherd others according to God’s desire, according not only to what He commands us in His word but His heart’s desire.
We need to shepherd not only according to God’s instructions and commandments, but according to His desire. Yes, we were commanded and commissioned to go and preach the gospel and disciple all nations, but we need to shepherd others not only according to God’s commandment but even more according to God’s heart, the very person of God.
Peter could not forget what happened on the seashore in John 21; after his great failure in denying the Lord three times, Peter went back to his former trade – he went fishing, with some of the brothers.
But the Lord appeared to him and asked him, Peter, do you love Me more than these? Before the Lord was crucified, Peter told the Lord, If all these ones will forsake You, I will never forsake You! He was so confident in himself, thinking that no one else is as absolute as he is.
Soon after, when the Lord was in the garden and was about to be captured, Peter took a sword and cut off someone’s ear….and then later he denied the Lord three times. Now on the seashore the Lord Jesus asked him three times, Do you still love Me? Do you still think you’re better and stronger than the other disciples? Feed My lambs and shepherd My sheep.
Peter was deeply exposed, convicted, and touched, realizing that he was following the Lord according to himself, his zeal, and his natural life. But the Lord had mercy on him and exposed him, stripped him from his natural zeal at this most shameful moment, and then restored him to shepherd others.
This left a deep impression in him, for he realized that when he loved the Lord yet not with his natural zeal, the Lord wants him to shepherd the others.
All our shepherding has to be done out of our love for the Lord, yet with nothing of our natural strength and zeal.
What does it mean to love the Lord? It is to give Him the first place, take Him as our person, and consider Him as the preeminent One. In shepherding others according to God’s desire we need to realize that all that we do should be out of love for the Lord.
We love the Lord, and because we love Him, we shepherd others according to God’s desire, not from our zeal or preference, but from our love for the Lord which allows Him to be the first One in us.
We must be according to what God in everything, and we must let Him impart His heart’s desire into us so that what governs our shepherding work is not our desire, preference, or need, but God’s desire.
Lord Jesus, we want to learn to shepherd others according to God’s desire by loving God and doing everything out of love for the Lord. Lord, we take You as our person and we give You the preeminence in our being. Have mercy on us, Lord, and expose and remove anything of the natural zeal and preference, so that we may shepherd others according to God. May all our shepherding issue out of our love for the Lord, and may God’s desire be infused into us to govern all our shepherding work toward the saints and the new ones.
The Desire of God’s Heart is to be the Fountain of Living Waters to Satisfy our Thirst
If we are to shepherd according to God and His desire, we need to see that the desire of God’s heart in His economy is to be the fountain of living waters to satisfy and quench His people’s thirst (see Jer. 2:13).
The good pleasure of God in His economy is to be the source of living waters to dispense Himself into His chosen people for their satisfaction and enjoyment, with the goal of producing the church as God’s increase and enlargement to be His foulness for His expression (see John 3:29-30; Eph. 1:22-23; 3:16-19, 21).
We need to be deeply impressed with the desire of God’s heart and we must shepherd others according to God’s desire.
God wants not only to rescue sinners from eternal perdition and judgment but to pour Himself out into His chosen people to be their enjoyment and satisfaction.
This is why in Jer. 2:13 He told His people that they have committed two evils – they left Him as the fountain of living waters, and they hew out for themselves cisterns – broken cisterns, which hold no water.
God is offended when His people forsake Him as the fountain of living waters, when they replace Him with other things, persons, and aims (which are broken cisterns, holding no water).
Instead of drinking Him to become His increase for His expression, we can become like Israel by forsaking God as the fountain of living waters to hew out cisterns (typifying idols) to replace God as our enjoyment. Oh Lord Jesus!
God’s desire is seen in many places in the Bible, including in the most famous verse John 3:16; here we see that God so loved the world that He GAVE His only begotten Son. God didn’t just send His Son but gave Him, so that we may receive Him and have eternal life!
Eternal life is not the sweet by-and-by but the Son of God Himself. After believing into the Lord, we should continue to enjoy Him!
However, many believers forsake God and fill themselves up with many different things; these things may not be bad or sinful but good works, being religious, and doing moral things, but they become replacement of God!
When the Lord Jesus came, the Pharisees were studying the Scriptures and even reciting them, but the Lord told them in John 5:39, You search the Scriptures because you think in them you have eternal life, but you’re not willing to come to Me that you may have life.
Anything we seek apart from God is an idol and replaces God in our heart. An idol is anything within us that we love more than the Lord or that replaces the Lord in our life; whatever we possess, and even whatever we are, can become an idol (Ezek. 14:3; 1 John 5:21).
An idol refers not merely to the statue of Buddha in a Buddhist temple, but the idols in our heart.
For example, our peace, safety, health, or possessions may all become idols to us, but God is faithful in His purpose to take these things away so that we may drink of Him as the fountain of living waters!
Hallelujah, God is faithful in leading us into His economy, and His economy is for us to enjoy Christ, to absorb Christ, to drink Christ, to eat Christ, and to assimilate Christ so that God may increase in us for His expression (1 Cor. 1:9; 5:7-8; 12:12-13; Jer. 2:13)!
God is not after giving us prosperity outwardly but Himself inwardly to enjoy as our everything! He loads us with good by giving Himself to us, and He is faithful to remove anything else that would replace Him. May we learn to shepherd according to God’s desire by knowing God’s desire and being one with God!
Lord, forgive us for forsaking You as the fountain of living waters and for hewing out for ourselves cisterns which hold no water. Oh Lord, we want to drink of You, receive You, and be filled with You. Save us from having idols in our heart that would replace You. We return to You, Lord, again and again, so that we may be filled with You. Dispense Yourself into us, Lord Jesus, and make us those who shepherd others according to God’s desire by dispensing God into them for their satisfaction! Thank You Lord for Your faithfulness in Your economy in leading us to enjoy Christ and eat Christ so that God may increase in us for His expression!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by James Lee for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Jeremiah, msg. 4 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Propagating the Resurrected, Ascended, and All-inclusive Christ as the Development of the Kingdom of God (2018 fall ITERO), week 4, Shepherding the Flock of God according to God by Being Patterns of the Flock.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Foll’wing Thee, Good Shepherd, I would feed, / Shepherd those allotted me, / E’er I’d touch Thy heart’s desire, / Live in Thine economy. / O my Lord, All thanks to Thee! / Goodness, mercy follow me; / I’d ever dwell within Thy house, / As Thy Body glorious! (Song on, Shepherding in Love)
# I tried the broken cisterns, Lord, / But, ah, the waters failed! / E’en as I stooped to drink they fled, / And mocked me as I wailed. / Now none but Christ can satisfy, / None other name for me; / There’s love and life and lasting joy, / Lord Jesus, found in Thee. (Hymns #522)
# Since we’ve believed into Your Son / Some losses You’ve allowed / That we from broken cisterns turn / To drink our Fountain-God. / Your faithfulness has led us in / To Your economy, / Where Christ we all enjoy that You / In us may increased be. (Song on, O Father God, how faithful You are)
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