In John 21, a chapter that seems to be an appendix to the Gospel of John, we see how the apostolic ministry is in cooperation with Christ’s heavenly ministry, for the Lord as the good Shepherd, commissioned Peter to feed His lambs and shepherd His sheep; today we are commissioned by the Lord to shepherd His sheep and feed His lambs!
Lord Jesus, impress us with Your commission to shepherd Your sheep and feed Your lambs! May we see that You are still the Shepherd in Your heavenly ministry and may we open to Your wonderful shepherding today! Hallelujah, the Good Shepherd we see in the Gospels is now the pneumatic Shepherd in our spirit taking care of our inward being and the real situation of our person. We open to Your shepherding, dear Lord, and we want to shepherd Your sheep and feed Your lambs today! Amen, Lord, we are one with You today to care for Your sheep, feed Your lambs, and shepherd Your sheep! Amen!
The Lord Jesus is a living, wonderful, glorious person who not only came and died for us and then became a life-giving Spirit to regenerate us and make us the same as God in life and in nature, but even more, He now lives in us!
He is not a historical figure who came, did an amazing work, spoke some excellent words, and died selflessly on the cross.
He is now in His heavenly ministry doing a work of shepherding so that He may gain what He is after.
The Lord today has a need for a group of people that will cooperate with Him to give Him the ground to do what He wants to do so that His life can be lived out again in us.
We want to be such ones today. We want to live a shepherding life today.
He wants to gain some who correspond to His heavenly ministry; right now, He is interceding for us, He is ministering to us, and He is shepherding us, and we can and should correspond to Him.
We want to not only enjoy His care, His dispensing, and His interceding and His shepherding, but even more, correspond to Him in every possible way.
There must be a group of people on earth who are so one with Him that, whatever He does in heaven, they reflect on the earth, and the ones He shepherds as the Head of the Body, the members of the Body do likewise.
We are the continuation of Christ; our ministry should be in cooperation with His ministry, even corresponding to His heavenly ministry, so that He may be expressed through us today. Amen, Lord, make us such ones today! Amen!
John 21 Reveals the Apostolic Ministry in Cooperation with Christ’s Heavenly Ministry: We Shepherd others even as He Shepherds them!
If we read the Gospel of John, we see the earthly ministry of Christ, from His incarnation as teh Word of God to become a man in the flesh (John 1:1-14) to His resurrection as the last Adam to become a life-giving Spirit (ch. 20).
It seems that, after chapter 20, the Lord has done everything in His earthly ministry, but then we have chapter 21 where we see how He still continues His ministry in the heavens. Right now, Christ is in His heavenly ministry, shepherding people, and He wants to gain us to cooperate with Him.
John chapter 21 reveals the apostolic ministry in cooperation with Christ’s heavenly ministry.
Even though we may think that the Gospel of John should end with chapter 20, thank the Lord for chapter 21, which is not an appendix but even more, it consummates the entire Gospel of John!
This chapter shows us that Christ’s heavenly ministry and the apostles’ ministry on the earth cooperate together to carry out God’s economy. Amazing!
If we read John 21:15-17 and have much prayerful consideration over them, masticating them before the Lord and prayerfully internalising them, we will be impressed with the Lord’s work in His heavenly ministry.
Peter had just denied the Lord, a few days before this, and he wept bitterly, being full of regret and disappointment.
He thought he was strong in himself; he thought he could do better, and he failed miserably; he regretted that he denied the Lord. Worse still, he took the brothers to go fishing; they were told to wait in Jerusalem until the Lord pours out the Spirit, but he took the lead and even some brothers followed him to go fishing.
We can say that he was ready to throw in the towel; he was a failure, he couldn’t quite measure up to what he thought he should do when following Jesus, and he realised he fails so much.
They try to fish the whole night, but they don’t catch anything; then, the Lord comes and speaks to them from the shore, asking them to throw the net on the other side, and they catch a lot of fish. When they come to the shore, the Lord already prepared breakfast for them.
As the Lord talked to Peter, He could have rebuked him or at least reminded him that Christ told him he would deny the lord; none of this happened, however.
The Lord came as the Shepherd in His resurrection to care for one of His sheep. Even more, the Lord came to call Peter to shepherd His sheep and feed His lambs.
The Lord was already doing this; now the Christ in His heavenly ministry is seeking the cooperation of His disciples on the earth, those who have His life and nature.
In John 10:10-11 and 16 the Lord unveiled to the disciples that He was the good Shepherd who came that the sheep might have life abundantly.
He also said that He had other sheep – referring to the Gentiles – that He must lead to join with them – the Jewish believers – to be one flock (one church) under one Shepherd.
In His earthly ministry, Christ shepherded the people He was with, taking care of them, being compassionate toward them, and both cherishing them and nourishing them (Matt. 9:36; 10:1-6).
Then, after He went through death and entered into resurrection, Christ continued to shepherd His sheep.
The Lord’s shepherding today is in His heavenly ministry (1 Pet. 5:4) to take care of the church of God, issuing in His Body.
We today enjoy His wonderful shepherding, and the Lord wants us to correspond to Him in His heavenly ministry to shepherd others according to God.
We need to enter into working together with the Lord to shepherd others according to God!
Lord Jesus, thank You for coming as the good Shepherd who laid down His life for HIs sheep. Thank You, dear Lord, for laying down Your life so that we may receive and enjoy the divine life. Praise the Lord, now we can have life and have it abundantly! Amen, Lord, we open to Your shepherding. Thank You for continuing to be the Shepherd in Your heavenly ministry today! We open to Your shepherding today. We do not look at our failures and we do not focus on our weaknesses, for You are our Shepherd, and You take care of us. We just open to You. We want to be one with You today to shepherd Your sheep and feed Your lambs. Amen, Lord, may we be those on earth who correspond to You in Your heavenly ministry. We want to cooperate with You today, allowing You to not only shepherd us but also shepherd others through us. Lord Jesus, how we love Your shepherding! Amen, Lord, we are one with You to shepherd Your sheep and feed Your lambs today! Amen!
Christ Shepherds us and Commissions us to Feed His Lambs and Shepherd His Sheep
May the Lord have mercy on us and unveil us to see what He means by shepherding. Peter is our representative, for he failed so much, yet he was under the Lord’s shepherding.
In John 21 we see how the Lord Jesus came in His heavenly ministry and commissioned Peter to feed His lambs and shepherd His sheep.
When the Lord stayed with His disciples after His resurrection and before His ascension, in one of His appearings, He commissioned Peter to feed His lambs and shepherd His sheep in His absence, while He is in the heavens.
Peter failed, denied the Lord, and led the brothers to go away from the meeting and go fishing; yet the Lord came to where he was, shepherded Peter, and commissioned him to shepherd His sheep and feed His lambs.
This is to incorporate the apostolic ministry with Christ’s heavenly ministry to take care of God’s flock, which is the church that issues in the Body of Christ. The Lord commissions us today to shepherd His sheep and to feed His lambs.
We may be a failure, we may even deny the Lord, and we may take the brothers and go somewhere away from the Lord, but the Lord comes to us in His heavenly ministry to shepherd us, restore our love for Him, and commissions us to shepherd His people.
There is a great need among us saints at the end of this age, that we would shepherd one another and feed one another. We all are failures.
None of us has met the standard of the God-man living. We all are like Peter, yet the Lord still comes to us. He visits us. He shepherds us. He restores our love for Him. And he commissions us to shepherd His sheep and feed His lambs.
In John 21 we truly see what is in the Lord’s heart for each and every one of His believers.
He doesn’t want super-spiritual persons, nor does He seek to have perfect Christians; rather, wherever we are, whatever we are, whatever our past is, Christ shepherds us and commissions us to shepherd His sheep and feed His lambs.
He wants us to cooperate and coordinate with Him in His heavenly ministry in the way of shepherding others.
This is what it means to have a God-man living; it is to be one with the Lord and shepherd others according to God, for we are under His shepherding and we express His shepherding.
If we read John 21 we realise that none of us are disqualified: we all are qualified, we all have the ability, and we all can do it, for the Lord is shepherding us, and we can shepherd others also.
The Lord wants us to engage in the same activity as He is doing today; He is feeding His lambs and shepherding His sheep, and we are one with Him to do the same today.
Later the book of Acts, Peter said, We will continue steadfastly in prayer and in the ministry of the word (Acts 6:4).
In this way, he and the apostles with him cooperated with Christ’s heavenly ministry of intercession (Heb. 7:25) and of ministering God into His people (8:2).
Christ is able to save us to the uttermost, for He always lives to intercede for us. As we come forward to Him, He intercedes for us, and He saves us to the uttermost in His heavenly ministry. This is what the Lord is doing today, and we are commissioned to do the same.
Peter was so impressed with this commission of the Lord that, in his first book, he told the believers that they were like sheep being led astray, but they have now returned to the Shepherd and Overseer of their souls (1 Pet. 2:25).
Many times in our inner being we are in a needy situation; we all pass through things in this human life, and we have many needs. We are on this long Christian journey that requires much endurance.
We all need encouragement. We all need to be uplifted.
The Lord as the Shepherd of our souls is able to minister to us all. Christ indwells us to be our life and everything; at the same time, He is also overseeing and observing the condition and situation of our inner being.
He sees what’s going on in us, what we go through, and what we do, say, and feel. Christ shepherds us by caring for the welfare of our inner being and by exercising His oversight over the condition of our soul, our real person (see Heb. 13:17).
He understands us thoroughly; He sympathises with us, and He shepherds us. He also commissions us, as He commissioned Peter, to work together with Him and cooperate with Him in His heavenly ministry.
Peter exhorts the elders to shepherd the flock of God among them so that, when the Chief Shepherd is manifested, they – the faithful elders – will receive the unfading crown of glory (1 Pet. 5:1-4).
Not only the elders, but also each one of us are commissioned by the Lord to shepherd one another. From Peter’s writings, we can see that the heavenly ministry of Christ is mainly to shepherd the church of God as his flock, which issues in His Body.
Lord Jesus, we love You and we open to You. We open to Your shepherding. Thank You for being in us as our life to supply us to live the Christian life. Thank You for being the Shepherd of our soul who oversees the condition and situation of our inner being. Oh Lord, You know what we are going through. You know our situation. You know our real condition. We open to You. Thank You for coming as the Shepherd to bring us back to the enjoyment of Yourself. Thank You for sympathising with us and caring for us in love to restore our love for You. Amen, Lord, we love You. You know that we love You. We open to You in love. We love You and we want to feed Your lambs and shepherd Your sheep! Amen, Lord, may we be those who correspond to You on earth to shepherd the flock of God in Your absence. We are not qualified to shepherd because of what we are or what we do, but we are qualified because You shepherd us, You restore our love for You, You minister to us, You dispense Yourself into us, You reproduce Yourself in us, and You commission us to shepherd Your sheep and feed Your lambs! Amen!
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 Ray Mulligan on this topic, and portions from, Collected Works of Winess Lee, 1994-1997, vol. 4, “Crystallization-study of the Gospel of John,” ch. 13, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Great Need for a New Revival (2026 Memorial Day Blending Conference), week 5, “The Apostolic Ministry in Cooperation with Christ’s Heavenly Ministry to Shepherd the Church of God as His Flock for the Building Up of the Body of Christ and a New Revival” – 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)
– Thy saving arm a refuge is, / My Savior God, to me; / Thou as the Father keepeth them / Who put their trust in Thee. / The sheep and shepherd are of one, / The head and body same; / None e’er can pluck from out Thy hand / The child who trusts Thy Name. (Hymns #960 stanza 5)
– O brother, won’t you gather in the local church? / A fountain here is flowing deep and wide. / The Shepherd now would bring you to the local church, / Where thirsty spirits can be satisfied. (Hymns #1234 stanza 3)
