The Shepherding that Builds up the Body of Christ is Mutual Shepherding in Love

The shepherding that builds up the Body of Christ is mutual shepherding; we need to shepherd one another in mutuality, relying on those whom we shepherd and receiving their portion, both shepherding others and being shepherded by them so that through this mutual shepherding the church as the Body will build itself up in love. Amen!

As believers in Christ, we are under the wonderful, organic shepherding of our dear Lord Jesus Christ who not only came to shepherd us in His earthly ministry but even more now in His heavenly ministry is shepherding us according to God.

Christ is in ascension in the heavenlies, enthroned in the heavens; at the same time, He is shepherding us to take all-inclusive, tender care of our soul.

He sees and understands what we’re going through; He sympathizes with us, He cares for us, and He is the Shepherd of our soul.

As we come to the Lord day by day, He as the good Shepherd leads us to waters of rest, restores our soul, guides us on the paths of righteousness for His name’s sake, and leads us into the enjoyment of Himself.

Even though we may walk through the valley of the shadow of death, when we go through things in which we feel that death is so close to us that it almost touches us, we fear no evil, for the Lord as the Shepherd is with us.

His rod and His staff comfort us, and even in the presence of our enemies He lays a table with a rich feast for us to enjoy Him.

What a wonderful Shepherd we have! And this One is not only shepherding us but He wants to shepherd others through us.

He is in us to live in us a shepherding life.

If we genuinely enjoy the Lord and partake of Him, if we are under His shepherding, we will have the desire and burden to shepherd others.

Each believer in Christ has within him a shepherding life, a life that wants to shepherd others.

Such a shepherding life warms others up by cherishing them so that we may nourish them with something of Christ.

When we enjoy the Lord and remain under His shepherding, we will learn from Him to shepherd others by first cherishing them in the humanity of Jesus so that we may nourish them in the divinity of Christ with the riches of Christ.

Even though others may reject us or not receive our shepherding, the shepherding life in us is all-fitting and all-sufficient, for the Lord is expressing Himself through us.

When we live by the divine life, we will live out a life that is able to fit all situations and work under any kind of treatment for the fulfilment of the Lord’s purpose. Wow, what a life!

The Shepherding that Builds up the Body of Christ is Mutual Shepherding, Shepherding one another in Mutuality

The Lord is the One who has blended the Body together, giving more abundant honor to the members that lacked and assigning more honour to the members that are not so comely, so that there would be no division in the Body but that all the members would have the same care for one another (1 Cor. 12:24-26).

When one member of the Body suffers, all members suffer with it, and when one member is glorified, all the members rejoice with it.

This is done through the mutual shepherding for the building up of the Body of Christ.

The shepherding that builds up the Body of Christ is mutual shepherding.

The way the Body of Christ is built up is not only through the Lord’s direct building Himself into us but even more, through our mutual shepherding so that we may cooperate with the Lord’s building work.

We are in the local churches, but we actually are members of the Body of Christ, and as members, we need to shepherd one another in mutuality.

A local church is an expression of the universal, organic Body of Christ.

How much of the reality of the Body of Christ is in our church life?

If we are before the Lord concerning this, we may realize that we lack very much.

Only when the Body of Christ is built up can Christ return, and the goal of shepherding is the building up of the Body.

When we shepherd one another in mutuality, when I shepherd you and you shepherd me one with the Lord, we are built up together and the Lord can have His built-up Body so that He may obtain His bride for Him to return.

The shepherding that builds up the Body of Christ is mutual shepherding; it is not only those who are more mature and who are concerned for others that shepherd but they themselves receive others’ shepherding.

We need to realize that, as members in the Body, we cannot live without the other members in the Body.

We cannot live without others’ portion in the Body, and we desperately need their function.

We need the saints’ prayers, their care, their emails, their visitation, their text messages, and their encouragement.

Without the saints’ shepherding, we cannot go on with the Lord and we cannot be built up in the Body.

We may be sick at home or in the hospital, isolated from the others, but even there we need the bountiful supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ in the Body and through the fellow members of the Body (Phil. 1:19-21).

We help others and others help us; this is not just humanly speaking, but even spiritually much more.

There’s a capacity in us, in each believer in Christ, to care for others.

We may give someone a ride to the meeting or to the airport, and in that short time in the car, there can be some mutual shepherding going on.

All of us need to be under the organic shepherding of Christ and be one with Him to shepherd one another (John 21:15-17).

We are both shepherds and sheep.

On the one hand, we are the Lord’s sheep, enjoying His shepherding directly and indirectly through our fellow members of the Body.

On the other hand, we are shepherds, learning from Christ and from the fellow shepherds, shepherding the sheep of God according to God.

In mutual shepherding, we shepherd one another in love (1 Cor. 13:1-13).

The element of our shepherding is Christ and the atmosphere of our shepherding is love, the Lord Himself as love being expressed through us.

Our shepherding one another is not out of a sense of duty or necessity; it is the love of God flowing through us.

Through this mutual shepherding, the church as the body of Christ will build itself up in love (Matt. 16:18; Eph. 1:22-23; 2:21-22; 4:16).

This is how we build up the Body of Christ, by our mutual shepherding in love.

When each one of us learns to shepherd others and receives others’ shepherding, we build up the Body and the Body builds itself up in love.

Lord Jesus, we want to learn to shepherd one another in love for the building up of the Body of Christ. May there be much mutual shepherding in the church life so that the Body of Christ may be built up in love. Oh Lord, how much we need Your organic shepherding! We open to You and we want to cooperate with You to shepherd others according to God. May we realize that we are both sheep and shepherds, for we both shepherd others and are being shepherded by them in mutuality. Amen, Lord, gain the mutual shepherding among us today. May we learn to care for others according to God and also receive their shepherding in love for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ. Yes, Lord, gain the building up of the Body through our mutual shepherding in love. May the Body grow and build itself up in love through the function of each member in shepherding one another.

Having the Proper Mutual Shepherding in Love with Patience, Relying on one another, and Receiving others’ Help

In the Body of Christ, all the members should function in a proper way, and the way they function is by shepherding one another in mutuality.

We need to learn to minister life to others and receive others’ portion of Christ also.

First, we need to enjoy the Lord and have a rich portion of the all-inclusive Christ constituted into our being.

We need to learn the lessons of life and experience Christ in our daily living.

Then, we will know how to minister life to others, for we have a portion of Christ ready to minister to them.

Actually, as long as we enjoy Christ as life and experience Him, we already have life, and life is ministered to them in the Body.

We may visit others to see how are they doing, and we will simply minister something of life to them.

When we want to shepherd others, we need to be in an atmosphere of prayer.

We cannot bring others to pray if we ourselves do not live in a spirit and atmosphere of prayer.

We need to trust in the Lord and depend on Him for everything; this is by unceasingly praying and in everything giving thanks.

When we are in an atmosphere of prayer, we will bring such an atmosphere to others and we will help them also enter into a prayer life.

This is to shepherd others; we shepherd them by bringing them into an atmosphere of prayer so that, no matter what happens to them, they would come to the Lord, look to Him, and rely on Him for His presence and clear leading.

We need to be such ones and, in our contacting others, we will also lead them to be such ones.

When it comes to the matter of shepherding others and receiving their shepherding, we need to have patience, for shepherding takes time.

Some saints may be quite new to the Lord while others may be backslidden; through our continual contact with them in a spirit and atmosphere of prayer, we will minister something of Christ into them.

Through the continual contact with the saints in love to have mutual shepherding, the church as the Body of Christ is built up and the church grows.

If there is only the preaching of the gospel without shepherding, the new ones will fall away.

Sometimes saints lose their interest in gospel preaching because they know that there’s no shepherding after the new ones are saved. Oh, Lord.

This is like a family having children but then losing them.

We need to have proper begetting and shepherding; there has to be a proper child-raising through shepherding in mutuality.

It’s impossible only for the leading brothers in the church to take care of the new ones through shepherding; we all need to pick up the burden and let the Lord flow through us as we shepherd in mutuality.

As we shepherd others, we need to rely on them and trust in them, realizing that just as they need our shepherding, so we need their shepherding.

This is mutual shepherding, shepherding in mutuality.

We need to give others the sense that we’re not above them nor do we have requirements of them but that we need them in the Body of Christ.

Our attitude is that we need them for our going on together, and we don’t want to force them to do something they don’t want to do; rather, we simply want to minister something of Christ to them and receive their portion of Christ.

We need to let people have a free choice and, on our part, we want to minister life to them.

If we have such a circulation, such a mutual shepherding, us receiving their shepherding and them receiving something from us in love, we will be built up together, and the Body builds itself up in love.

Sometimes, however, there may be a sense that the new ones or the young believers don’t have confidence in us; we need to behave in such a way that we build up a mutual confidence, and this will open them up.

At the same time, we need to be prepared to be like Paul, rejected by the very ones whom we have brought to the Lord and raised up in the Lord.

We are not here for ourselves but for the Lord, and before the Lord we learn to shepherd others and receive their shepherding.

We fellowship with them according to our own experience of Christ, and we share with them what we enjoyed and experienced of the Lord in our daily life.

As we shepherd in this way, as we practice shepherding one another in mutuality, we will learn many lessons, and we will build up the Body of Christ in love.

Lord Jesus, we want to learn to shepherd others by visiting them in a spirit and atmosphere of prayer. We depend on You, Lord, and we put our trust in You. We don’t want to speak our own things nor do we want to live according to our own disposition as we shepherd one another in the church life. Keep us depending on You, Lord, and looking to You about all things. Grant us the endurance and patience for us to contact the saints to shepherd them continually. Oh Lord, may there be much mutual shepherding among us today. Save us from relying on the leading ones to care for the new ones; may we learn to shepherd others according to God. Oh Lord, save us from forcing others to do something; may we give everyone the freedom to choose as we minister Christ to them in love. We want to learn from You, dear Lord, to shepherd others and receive their shepherding so that the Body of Christ may be built up in mutuality!

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 Ron Kangas in the message for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1973-1974, vol. 2, “The Normal Way of Fruit-bearing and Shepherding for the Building Up of the Church,” chs. 8-9, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, An Overview of the Central Burden and Present Truth of the Lord’s Recovery Before His Appearing (2023 July Semiannual Training), week 6, entitled, Shepherding according to God.
• Similar articles on this topic:
  – The Lord’s Shepherding to New Jerusalem, article via, New Jerusalem blog.
  – Loving the Lord and Loving One Another—the Most Excellent Way for Us to Be Anything and Do Anything for the Organic Building Up of the Church as the Body of Christ, via, Prophesying Reference.
  – Testimony of A.E. – how Sweet and Shepherding the Fellowship in the Church Life is, testimony via, Living to Him.
  – Shepherding the Lord’s flock, a portion from, The Fulfillment of the Tabernacle and the Offerings in the Writings of John, Chapter 62, by Witness Lee.
  – How Psalm 23 Reveals the Organic Shepherding of the Pneumatic Christ, article via, Holding to Truth in Love.
  – Forgiveness and the Building Up of the Body of Christ, article via, Shepherding Words.
  – Brother Lee called for all the saints to enter into a new and unprecedented revival consisting of the high peak truth, the God-man living, and mutual shepherding according to God. Such a revival will produce a group of overcomers who live in the reality of the Body of Christ and become the bride of Christ as a preparation for the Lord’s second coming and the consummation of the New Jerusalem. More via, a Faithful Word.
  – The Purpose of the Vital Groups and an Overview of the Living Contents of the Vital Groups, article via, Church in Seattle.
  – Testimonies of being shepherded in the church life via, Church in Surrey.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – The King of love my Shepherd is, / Whose goodness faileth never; / I nothing lack if I am His, / And He is mine forever. / Where streams of living water flow / My ransomed soul He leadeth, / And, where the verdant pastures grow, / With food celestial feedeth. (Hymns #528 stanzas 1-2)
  – How sweet, how heav’nly is the sight, / When those who love the Lord / In one another’s peace delight, / And so fulfill His Word…When love, in one delightful stream, / Through every bosom flows; / When union sweet, and dear esteem, / In every action glows. / Love is the golden chain that binds; / The saints Thy grace thus prove. / And he is glory’s heir that finds / His bosom glow with love. (Hymns #857 stanzas 1, 4-5)
  – In the church of Jesus there is work for you; / Such as even angels might rejoice to do; / Why stand idly sighing for some life work grand, / While the church of Jesus seeks your reaping hand? / In the church of Jesus there’s a place for you; / Glorious, bright, and joyous, right and peaceful too; / Why then like a wand’rer, roam with weary pace, / If the church of Jesus holds for you a place. (Hymns #1278 stanzas 3-4)