Our Lord Jesus is the Shepherd of our souls, taking care of the needs of our soul; He is the great Shepherd of the sheep, caring for the welfare of our soul and shepherding our mind, emotion, and will with all their problems, needs, and wounds, and we can cooperate with His shepherding today.
Lord Jesus, thank You for being the good Shepherd who came to lay down His life for us. Thank You for being the Shepherd of our souls who cares for our inner being. We open to You. We open our mind, emotion, and will to You, for You know us, You care for us, and You shepherd us. Amen, Lord, shepherd us today. Care for the inward situation of our being and oversee our inward condition. You see how complicated our soul is; we open to Your shepherding today! Amen!
The only way we can shepherd others according to God is if we first enjoy the Lord’s shepherding and are infused with Him as the Shepherd, for only He in us can shepherd others according to God.
To shepherd means to take all-inclusive, tender care of the flock, and only Christ can do this. He is the good Shepherd.
He came through incarnation not only to be our Saviour, our Bridegroom, our Redeemer, and our life, but even more, to be our Shepherd.
He told us that He came so that we may have life and may have it abundantly; He laid down His soul-life and His human life for us so that we may have His divine life. We were like sheep astray from the Lord; we need Him as our Shepherd, but He came first to redeem us and then to impart His life into us.
Thank the Lord that He was willing to lay down His soul-life, His human life, so that we may obtain His zoe life, the eternal life of God.
He called us out of wherever we were and we heard His voice. Every genuine believer in Christ is a sheep belonging to the Lord, part of the flock.
Christ as the Shepherd called him, he listened to the Lord’s voice, and he answered the Lord’s call. Christ leads His sheep out of the fold into Himself as the pasture, the feeding place, where we all may eat Him freely and be nourished with Him.
He called His sheep from the fold of the Jewish religion and He is calling us all, the Gentile believers, to come to Him, so that He can be the one Shepherd and we will be His one flock.
Thank the Lord that He is our Shepherd and we are His flock! We as His sheep dwell securely and are richly fed, for Christ is our Shepherd and He leads us to waters of rest and pastures, for us to feed on Him! Amen!
Christ is the Great Shepherd of the Sheep Shepherding us into the New Jerusalem and He’s the Chief Shepherd
Hebrews 13:20 tells us that God brought up from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great Shepherd of the sheep, in the blood of an eternal covenant.
God made an eternal covenant with us, which is not only that He will no longer judge the world by water but even more, that He will gain a flock, which is the church, issuing in the Body of Christ and consummating in the New Jerusalem.
God’s covenant is to gain a Body for Christ, the church as the Body of Christ and the flock of God.
This is why Christ died and shed His blood; He died to gain a flock, the many believers in Christ to be His Body, His corporate expression.
The eternal covenant God makes with us is to consummate the New Jerusalem by shepherding.
Christ is our Shepherd, even the great Shepherd of the sheep, and He is shepherding us until we become the New Jerusalem! Praise the Lord! The New Jerusalem is not a thing, a city, or even just a concept; the New Jerusalem is a corporate person which we are becoming!
The New Jerusalem is the wife, the bride of the Lamb, and we as the New Jerusalem will marry and live forever with the all-inclusive Christ.
We are not going to the New Jerusalem: we are becoming the New Jerusalem by the Lord’s shepherding.
The eternal covenant is the covenant of the New Testament to gain a flock, which is the church issuing in the Body of Christ and consummating in the New Jerusalem.
The goal is the New Jerusalem. We are being shepherded by the Lord as the chief Shepherd not only so that we go on with Him and not fail that much; we are shepherded to be in the church as the Body of Christ, consummating in the New Jerusalem.
In 1 Peter 5:4 we see that Christ is the Chief Shepherd, and He shepherds His flock through the elders of the churches.
How does Christ shepherd the churches? He is in His heavenly ministry as the Chief Shepherd, and He is shepherding His flock through the elders of the churches.
The elders’ main function is not merely to visit the saints, give the announcements, arrange all kinds of practical matters, or even to give a message or a word of encouragement.
The main function of the elders is to shepherd the saints, even to shepherd them according to God. Without the elders’ shepherding, the church cannot be built up.
The elders, however, should be one with the Lord in shepherding the saints. Actually, the elders’ shepherding should be Christ’s shepherding through them.
We need to pray for the elders and ask the Lord to make them His representatives in the matter of shepherding. At the same time, we need to also learn to shepherd the saints according to God. Not only the elders, but we all need to learn to shepherd one another.
There is One who is the Chief Shepherd, and we all are co-shepherds, learning to shepherd the saints according to God and one with the Lord.
On His side, the Lord is shepherding, for He is the great Shepherd who carries out the new covenant by shepherding us until we become the New Jerusalem.
On our side, we are learning to shepherd one with the Lord, under Christ as the Chief Shepherd. May we be before the Lord related to the matter of shepherding, for we have much to learn from the inward, organic, pneumatic Shepherd in our spirit.
May we also pray for one another, especially pray for the elders, that our shepherding would be Christ’s shepherding through us.
If we shepherd others according to what we are, eventually there’s no one we would shepherd, for we may not like others who are different from us. But if we shepherd the saints according to God, God will be in our shepherding, and we will express Christ’s shepherding as we care for them.
Lord Jesus, we praise You as the great Shepherd of the sheep who was raised up by God in the blood of an eternal covenant! Hallelujah, Christ made an eternal covenant in His blood that He will gain a flock, the Body of Christ, consummating in the New Jerusalem! Amen, Lord, we want to remain under the covenant today. We open to Your shepherding. Shepherd us today as Your flock, both personally and corporately, so that we may be the church as the Body of Christ! Amen, Lord, thank You for being the Chief Shepherd who shepherds the flock through the elders of the churches. We open to Your wonderful shepherding today. Strengthen the elders in the churches into their inner man so that they may be one with You to shepherd the flock of God according to God. Amen, Lord, may we be one with You today to shepherd the saints according to God. May we receive and enjoy Your shepherding, and may we let You shepherd others through us. May our shepherding be Christ’s shepherding others through us! Amen!
Christ is the Shepherd of our Souls Overseeing our Inward Condition: He Directs our Mind, Comforts our Emotion, and Leads and Guides our Will
According to 1 Peter 2:25, Christ is the Shepherd of our souls; as the pneumatic Christ, He oversees our inward condition, caring for the situation of our inner being.
When He died for us on the tree, He was our Redeemer; now in resurrection, Christ is the Shepherd and Overseer of our soul in the resurrection life within us.
He is able to guide us and supply us with life so that we may follow in His steps according to the model of His suffering (1 Pet. 2:21). He shepherds our soul.
On the one hand, thank the Lord that He has regenerated our spirit; we love our spirit, we love to call on the name of the Lord and enjoy Him, and we love to exercise our spirit.
But our real person is our soul; all the problems, needs, and wounds are in our soul.
Christ as the Shepherd and Overseer of our soul shepherds us by caring for the welfare of our inner being and by exercising His oversight over the condition of our real person.
He is the Shepherd of our soul; He is in our spirit, and He cares for our soul, shepherding our soul.
The unbelievers have a soul, and they wander in their soul; they are lost, they go through so many situations and things, and they have no shepherd. But we as believers in Christ have a Shepherd – Christ as the Shepherd of our souls, who takes care of us.
Not only do we have Christ as life in our spirit but even more, we have Him as the Shepherd of our soul.
If we check with our experience, we realise that the Lord’s comfort, peace, and joy, are in our soul; He is our life in our spirit, but when He shepherds us, He shepherds our soul.
Many times we encourage one another to turn to our spirit, expecting that everything will be alright.
Actually, we can testify that, even though we touch the Lord in our spirit, we still have many problems in our soul; many things are still not alright because our soul needs shepherding. We need to enjoy Christ as the Shepherd of our souls
. This is why Peter did not say that Christ is the Shepherd of our spirit or of our body but the Shepherd of our souls.
Our soul suffers; our soul has problems; our soul has wounds. Our soul needs shepherding. It is not the body or the spirit that needs this kind of care; it is our soul.
We need the Lord’s shepherding in our soul. For example, sometimes in our experience we go through things that puzzle us, confuse us, and we don’t know what to think about.
We love the Lord, we exercise our spirit to touch Him, but we do not know where to direct our thoughts.
We need the Lord to shepherd us in our mind. We can testify that in so many ways and in so many things, the Lord Jesus has been a Shepherd to us in our mind (Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23). As a result of the Lord’s shepherding, our mind is directed and set in the right way.
Many times our emotion has problems; our emotion is complicated and is very easily upset. Not only the sisters but also many of the brothers have problems with their emotions. We need the Lord Jesus to shepherd us in our emotion.
As He shepherds us, our emotion is comforted. May we open to the Shepherd of our souls so that He may shepherd us in our soul.
What about our will? Oh Lord, many times we find it difficult to make the right decision. Even worse, we need to make a decision, but the hardest thing to do is to make a decision.
At other times, we are quick to decide things, and we may run into many problems. The Lord wants to shepherd our will with its decisions.
He is our Shepherd who leads us and guides us. His leading and guiding are related to our will.
He is the living Shepherd in our spirit, and He continually directs our will. Christ as our Shepherd directs our mind, comforts our emotion, and leads and guides our will.
Because our soul is very complicated, we need Christ, who is the life-giving Spirit in our spirit, to shepherd us in our soul, to take care of our mind, emotion, and will and of our problems, needs, and wounds.
He knows our inward being; He knows what we go through, and He knows how we feel and what we think. He is not criticising or judging us; He sees that our mind has so many memories that are unpleasant, our emotion has so many wounds and hurts, and our will is so stubborn.
He sees that the young saints have dreams and hopes, and the older saints have a lot of memories in which they dwell.
So He comes in as the Shepherd of our souls to care for us. We need to let the Lord heal us.
We need to let Him touch our mind, emotion, and will, and heal our inner being. He will infuse us with Himself, heal and comfort our inner being, and cause us to grow in life by His shepherding.
May we learn to open to the Lord again and again in our personal time with Him, and may we read and pray over His word in a consistent way so that He may have a way to speak to us and comfort us, heal us, and restore us by His inner speaking.
He will direct our mind, comfort our emotion, and lead and guide our will as the Shepherd of our souls.
Lord Jesus, we come to You as the Shepherd of our souls today. We open to You. We want to spend time with You and just open our inner being to You. You see how complicated our soul is. You see how hurt, wounded, and complicated we are. Oh Lord, come in as the Shepherd of our souls to direct our mind, comfort our emotion, and lead and guide our will! We open our mind to You with all its thoughts, concepts, and ideas. Shepherd us in our mind and direct our mind to think the way You think; may we have the mind of Christ! Lord Jesus, we open our emotions to You; You see how complicated our emotions are, and how easily we are upset. Come in, Lord, and comfort our emotions. Oh Lord, what about our will with its decisions or lack of will to make decisions? Lead us and guide us in our will. We open to You in our time with You and we allow You to come in as the Shepherd of our souls to lead us and guide us in our decisions. How grateful we are that we have a Shepherd we can come to! Amen, Lord, we open to Your shepherding today!
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 on this topic, and portions from, Life-study of 1 Peter, pp. 190-192, by Witness Lee, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Great Need for a New Revival (2026 Memorial Day Blending Conference), week 6, “Shepherding according to God” – day 2.
- 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)
– 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 stanza 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)
