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 life to be one flock under Christ as the good Shepherd.
Today all the believers in Christ – whether Jews, Gentiles, white, yellow, black, etc – are under the Lord’s shepherding as part of the one flock, the church. Don’t you love the Lord’s shepherding both from within (by being your life and by living in you) and from without (by taking care of you through all situations and people)?
He cares for each one of His sheep, and He flocks them all together – it is Christ with His divine life that flocks us together and makes us one. In the church life today we enjoy the all-inclusive tender care of our wonderful Shepherd.
The Gospel of John ends with chapter 1 on shepherding – the Lord shepherded Peter to recover his first love for Him, and then He commissioned Peter to shepherd His sheep (see John 21). On the one hand we enjoy the Lord’s shepherding, and on the other, we are entrusted with a commission to shepherd the sheep in God’s flock, the saints in the church.
To shepherd means primarily to feed, and it also includes to cherish. We need to learn to make the saints happy so that they would open and receive something of Christ from us.
Just as the Lord makes us happy, pleasant, and comfortable so that He may dispense His life into us, so we need to shepherd others by first cherishing them and then nourishing them with the all-inclusive Christ.
The Lord Causes us to Flock Together and Be One in His Life
In the world people “flock together” (at least temporarily) when they have a common interest (sports, cars, entertainment, humanistic causes, etc), but after that, they don’t remain one – each one has his own opinions, views, and disposition.
How can we be one in the church life as the flock of Christ? We are so different in our way of living, speaking, dressing, taking care of things, etc. It is only in and by the divine life that we can be one.
Christ shepherded us all together into His flock by dying for us and releasing His divine life to regenerate us, and today in the heavens He is still shepherding us by bringing us all through Himself as the door into Himself as the pasture to be the one flock with one Shepherd (see John 10:10-18; Eph. 2:14-16; 3:6).
The secret of living and remaining in the church life and being the one flock is living by the divine life daily. There’s no way for us to practice the church life in one accord except by the divine life. The more you and I live by the divine life, the more we are one in the flock under the Shepherd. The more we enjoy the divine life of Christ, the more we will desire to be with the flock – with the other brothers and sisters.
If we don’t read the Bible and we don’t pray to fellowship with God, the divine life in us won’t grow and develop, and we will be like “scattered sheep”. But when we enjoy the flow of the divine life in our spirit by exercising our spirit to touch the Lord and enjoy Him, we will have a longing to meet with the brothers and the sisters, our fellow sheep, to enjoy our wonderful Shepherd.
The Lord didn’t just redeem us, save us, and then leave us – He flocked us together! This flock is not a religious organization; the Lord doesn’t “organise the flock” – He shepherds it. The flock is something organic; the church is organic, it is an organism, the Body of Christ.
We are produced, kept, and maintained in the flock by the divine life. We are held together and made one in the church as the flock by the divine life. We need to enjoy Christ as our life and let Him live in us so that we may be in reality the flock under Christ as the Shepherd. Christ as the Good Shepherd flocks us together (see John 10:16; Luke 12:32, cf. Isa. 40:11)
We Need to Be Shepherded and We Need to Shepherd Others for the Church
The last chapter in the Gospel of John is focused on shepherding – the Lord shepherded Peter and the disciples who went fishing by helping them catch fish, and then He prepared breakfast for them on the shore. The Lord then shepherded Peter to recover his first love for the Lord and commission him to shepherd His sheep.
The key to the gospel of John is shepherding, and the key to our Christian life and church life is shepherding. We need so much shepherding! The Lord comes to us again and again and we are so cold, distant, un-open, and unwilling….but He makes us feel happy, comfortable, and pleasant, and then we open to Him and let Him infuse Himself into us as life.
The Lord as the Good Shepherd has a way with each one of His sheep – He shepherds them by cherishing them and nourishing them, then He reproduces Himself into them to make them shepherding ones also. We don’t only need the Lord’s shepherding – we also need to shepherd others by cherishing them and nourishing them.
To cherish others means to make them happy, make them feel comfortable and pleasant, so that they would open to you and the Lord. This doesn’t mean that we should tell them jokes to make them laugh or take them to the movies to make them happy.
We need to learn from the Lord as the good Shepherd to cherish others and then feed them, nourish them with the all-inclusive Christ. In order for us to enjoy the divine life in abundance and to minister life to others, we need to shepherd them.
Before we can shepherd others, we need to seek Christ, experience Him, gain Him, enjoy Him, and participate in Him, and He will be the shepherding One in us. The Lord spent a lot of time with the sinners and the tax collectors; He didn’t judge them or criticize them but ate and drank with them, causing them to feel comfortable in His presence. Then, He infused life into them and the result was that some of them were inwardly changed.
We need to know our wonderful Shepherd and all He did to shepherd others (see John 3:16; 4:10, 14; 10:9-18; 21:15-17), and we need to learn from Him.
Right now Christ is carrying out His heavenly ministry to shepherd us, His sheep, and He has incorporated the apostolic ministry into this also – we are His sent ones to the world to shepherd them by cherishing them and nourishing them with the words of life, so that the church as the one flock would be produced (Matt. 24:45-47; Acts 20:28; 1 Pet. 5:2-3).
After His resurrection, Christ incorporated the ministry of the apostles (going to preach the gospel, save sinners, edify them, nurture them, equip them, and build them up into the church as the Body of Christ) into His heavenly ministry.
Now both us and Christ are doing the same thing – we shepherd others by being one with the Lord to take an all-inclusive care of the sheep in God’s flock, the church, the Body of Christ. How we need the Lord’s shepherding and to shepherd one another for the church!
Lord Jesus, we open to Your flocking us together. Keep us coming to You and allowing You to cherish us in Your humanity and nourish us in Your divinity. Lord, thank You for taking such a good care of us. Thank You for Your all-inclusive tender care for us. Make us those who cooperate with You in Your heavenly ministry to shepherd others also. Lord, make us those who cherish others by making them happy and comfortable, so that we may minister the all-inclusive Christ as the life-giving Spirit to them for the producing of the flock, the church, the Body of Christ!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Minoru Chen’s speaking in the message for this week, and portions from, The Mending Ministry of John (ch. 5), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Mending Ministry of John, week 3 / msg 3, The Shepherding of Christ for the Church as the One Flock and the Father’s House.
- Further reading: recommending msgs. 7 and 11 in, The Vital Groups (by Witness Lee).
- Hymns on this topic:
# 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… / And now I see… / You’re the One who’s always shepherding me. / And I see… / You’re the One who’s feeding, watering me. / And I see… / You’re the One who loves me as Your sheep. / And I see, Lord, You shepherd me. [new song #437]
# 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. / O Lord, do cherish us today, / Until our coldness flees away. / Oh, hold us close to Thee / And cherish tenderly; / O Lord, do cherish us today. [Hymns 1135]
# 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! [new song #359]
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