We need Mutual Shepherding to Grow in Life for the Building up of the Body of Christ

In the church life in the Lord’s recovery today there’s an urgent need of shepherding, for shepherding is crucial for our growth in life unto maturity for the building up of the Body and mutual shepherding builds up the Body of Christ.

Amen, Lord, we open to Your shepherding today. We open to You and we open to the saints You put us with. May there be much mutual shepherding among us in the church life. Thank You for coming to shepherd us day by day. We open to be shepherded by You and by the saints so that we may grow in life unto maturity for the building up of the Body of Christ! Amen!

Our God is a Shepherd; when He comes to us to be related to us, as He cares for us in many ways throughout our life, He is a shepherd. God has a disposition of shepherding.

Psalm 23 clearly shows us how Jehovah is our Shepherd. God loves to shepherd people. If we read the Old Testament, the people called by God and raised up by Him to take care of His people were all shepherds.

Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Moses, and David were all shepherds. God raises up some among His people to shepherd His people, but as we see in Ezekiel 34, many of these shepherds were actually shepherding themselves, feeding themselves, and not feeding His people.

So God was upset with them and He judged them. He had strong words to these so-called shepherds, for they were not doing the right thing.

God is concerned for His people, His flock, and in His eyes, many times the flock is mistreated by those whom He set as shepherds. Oh Lord!

So in Ezek. 34:15 the Lord said that He Himself will shepherd His people, and He will cause them to lie down. Oh Lord!

When the Lord Jesus came on the earth, He told us that He is the Good Shepherd.

Our God is a Shepherd. The whole Bible is a matter of shepherding. Without shepherding, there’s no way for God’s economy to be realised and fulfilled. We need to come to the Lord again and again and open to His shepherding.

We need to look to Him and be in His word to see that our God is a Shepherd and He wants us, the believers in Christ, to shepherd one another according to God.

Because God is a Shepherd and He knows how to shepherd, we need to learn from Him and shepherd one another according to God.

Before the Lord’s return, He wants to bring in that final, ultimate, new revival, and shepherding is one of the factors of this revival. May we open to Him to be perfected so that we may shepherd others according to God!

The Urgent Need of Shepherding for us to Grow in Life unto Maturity for the Building up of the Body of Christ

We all need to realise that in the Lord’s recovery today there’s an urgent need of shepherding (John 21:16; 1 Pet. 5:2, 4).

Thank the Lord that He has been shepherding us in a marvellous way these day.

After brothers Watchman Nee and Witness Lee, who were the ministers of the age, passed away, we are still here today because of the Lord’s shepherding.

We are so blessed to be under the ministry of the age, enjoying the Lord with the saints in the church life, and being under the Lord’s up-to-date speaking.

We can see and learn to practice the high peak of the divine revelation.

There are thousands of churches all over the earth, and there are so many saints who enjoy the Lord in the word and in the ministry.

We are so grateful to the Lord for keeping us under His blessing. It is not a small thing. It is all because of His shepherding.

Without shepherding, all the high truths we have heard and learned remain only as knowledge. Through the shepherding we can be ushered into the reality and working out of all the high revelation we have received.

Without shepherding, even though there are many saints around us and many churches we can blend with, the local churches can be only a formality.

We need to see our urgent need of shepherding in the church life today.

Every church life must be a church life of shepherding, otherwise we are just left with a kind of formality, a routine.

Without shepherding, many of the young ones will leave and not be perfected. Oh Lord!

The greatest lack among us is in the matter of shepherding. God is working actively to shepherd us, and the Lord Jesus in His heavenly ministry is the Shepherd, caring for the welfare of our souls.

In His organic salvation, God the Father first regenerates us by God the Spirit and then shepherds us in God the Son as our Shepherd that we may exist and grow in His life for eternity (1 Pet. 1:3; John 10:11; Rev. 7:17).

He is working in His divine economy to shepherd us. Christ is actively being involved in our daily living as the Great Shepherd, the Good Shepherd, and the Chief Shepherd, in order for Him to shepherd us and bring us on with Him.

We all need to be shepherded, for when we are under the Lord’s shepherding we can grow in life unto maturity for the building up of the Body of Christ (Eph. 5:13-16).

Shepherding is crucial for our growth in the divine life unto maturity so that we may build up the church as the organic Body of Christ.

For our shepherding, the Lord raised up some gifts, the apostles to preach the gospel and raise up churches, the prophets who can speak for God, the evangelists who preach the gospel, and the shepherds and teachers for the perfecting of the saints for the building up of the Body of Christ.

The building up of the Body of Christ is not only by the gifts, the gifted members in the Body of Christ, but even more, by each one of us, each one part who functions in their measure in a shepherded and perfected way to build up the Body in love.

May we not think that brother so-and-so or sister so-and-so are gifted with the gift of shepherding but we are not; rather, may we realise that, simply by having the divine life, we have the capacity to shepherd others.

First, we need to enjoy the Lord’s shepherding and also be under the shepherding of the saints the Lord put us with.

Then, we can shepherd others, even be perfected to shepherd them according to God.

As we cherish and nourish the new believers and the young saints, they can go on with the Lord, the divine life in them can grow, and together we build up the Body of Christ.

Amen, may we see our lack of shepherding and may we open to the Lord and to our fellow members in this matter!

Lord Jesus, we need Your shepherding! Amen, Lord, we open to You and to the members of the Body You put us with so that we may receive the shepherding we need. Oh, we realise our urgent need of shepherding in the church life today. Thank You for being with us. Thank You for Your up-to-date speaking. Thank You for all the saints in all the local churches. Amen, Lord, we are so blessed to be in the church life today. Praise the Father who regenerated us by God the Spirit and now is shepherding us in God the Son as our Shepherd! Amen, Lord, thank You that we can exist and grow in Your life for eternity due to Your shepherding! We open to Your shepherding today. We open to also shepherd others. May we be those who cooperate with You to shepherd the believers so that they may grow in the divine life unto maturity for the building up of the Body of Christ! Amen, Lord, we want to be one with You in the matter of shepherding!

The Shepherding that Builds up the Body of Christ is a Mutual Shepherding: we are both Sheep and Shepherds

When we speak of the matter of shepherding we don’t mean that some have this particular function and others simply enjoy the shepherding. Rather, we all have the function, the innate function of the divine life in our spirit, to shepherd others.

The shepherding that builds up the Body of Christ is a mutual shepherding (1 Cor. 12:23-26).

In Christianity today many realise that there’s the need for shepherding the flock, so they hire a pastor to shepherd them. This is not what is revealed in God’s word.

What the Bible tells us is that the ascended Christ gave gifts to the Body of Christ, and these gifts perfect the members of the Body so that the perfected members function in the Body for the building up of the Body in love.

One of the gifts that Christ gave to His Body is the shepherds and teachers.

These are not professional or trained shepherds and teachers; rather, they are gifts given to the Body. And these gifts perfect the saints so that the saints may function in shepherding and teaching one another.

If we read 1 Corinthians 12:23-26 we see that in the Body we all need to have the same care for one another.

Some members are uncomely, not so honourable, so we need to care for them and shepherd them.

We are not here for ourselves; we are in the Body, as members of the Body. When one member suffers, all members suffer with it, and when one member is glorified, all members rejoice with it.

The shepherding we are talking about is a mutual shepherding, a shepherding in mutuality.

All the believers in Christ, regardless of their stage of spiritual growth, need shepherding; we all have defects and shortcomings and we need others to shepherd us.

We shouldn’t think that only the young believers need shepherding; each one of us needs shepherding.

the older saints, who are more mature and advanced in the Lord, need the mutual shepherding with the saints.

We need to speak with one another, take care of one another, and minister Christ to one another.

It is a great shepherding, for example, when a young brother or sister comes to an older saint and asks them how they are doing, even shares something of what they enjoyed of Christ with them.

We need to be under the organic shepherding of Christ and we also need to be one with Him to shepherd others (John 10:11, 16; Heb. 13:20-21; 1 Pet. 5:4; 2:25).

As we do this, we need to realise that we are both sheep and shepherds; we are the Lord’s sheep in His flock, and we are learning to shepherd others and be shepherded by them.

We are shepherding and being shepherded in mutuality. Through this mutual shepherding, the church is built up into the Body of Christ (Heb. 5:14; Eph. 4:12-13).

We are both sheep and shepherds. In Revelation 7 we are told that the Lamb will shepherd us. The Lamb who is on the throne shepherds us today, and He brings us to the springs of living water.

May we not belittle ourselves and say that we don’t know all that much.

As long as we are a member of the Body of Christ, as long as we have the divine life, we are both a sheep and a shepherd, for the shepherd’s life is in you.

As we are learning to shepherd the saints, we realise that shepherding is very demanding; not even gospel preaching is as demanding as shepherding.

Everything related to shepherding depends on the new ones; on our side, we come to visit them and be with them, but we need to give up ourselves, our convenience, our ideas, and our concepts in order to shepherd others.

We are like parents, learning to raise up the new ones in the church life by dispensing the riches of Christ into them.

Each one of us has the wonderful gift of shepherding because we have the divine life in our spirit. Praise the Lord!

May we all learn to build up a daily life of the gospel, going to the Lord to show us who should be under the care of our shepherding.

We need to open to some to be shepherded by them, and we also need to shepherd others. As we shepherd the saints, we need to learn to listen to them so that we may realise what is their true and real situation.

We need to give up our own concept, thought, feeling, and speaking, and just learn to shepherd others by listening to them.

Shepherding doesn’t involve a lot of speaking from our side; many times we have to wait for the new ones to open and let us know what their situation is, and then we can minister something of Christ into them.

The secret of contacting people is not to say too much to them but help them open to the Lord and to us.

We should not give people our opinions or vain knowledge; rather, we need to learn to minister Christ to those we are shepherding.

It is good to open to the Lord regarding this, even ask Him to perfect us in the matter of shepherding.

Lord Jesus, we want to learn to shepherd the saints for the building up of the Body of Christ! Hallelujah, all the believers in Christ need shepherding and have the function of shepherding others! Amen, Lord, may we realise that, regardless of our stage of spiritual growth, we all need shepherding. May we open to You day by day to receive Your shepherding. May we open to the perfected saints to be shepherded by them. We want to remain under the organic shepherding of Christ and we want to be one with Him to shepherd others also! Hallelujah, we are both shepherds and sheep! Praise the Lord, we are shepherding and we are being shepherded in mutuality for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ! Amen, Lord, build up Your Body today by all saints functioning in the matter of shepherding! Perfect us in our shepherding. Save us from imparting our own ideas, concepts, or vain knowledge to others. May we learn to shepherd the saints according to God! May there be much mutual shepherding among us in the church life today for the church to be built up as the organic Body of Christ!

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 the brother James Lee on this topic, 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,” ch. 8, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Experiencing, Enjoying, and Expressing Christ (part 3 – 2025 Summer Training), week 34, Shepherding according to God – day 2.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – We give ourselves the flock’s steps to follow / Knowing the Shepherd’s care. / Now in the churches Jesus is leading / And He is speaking there. (Hymns #1246 stanza 3)
  – What He is: He’s the Shepherd. / He’s the lamb of God, the he-goat. / We rest and feed in the pasture land. / We strike the blood and eat the lamb. / He’s the Shepherd! Wonderful! (Hymns #1103 stanza 4)
  – 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 each can feel his brother’s sigh, / And with him bear a part; / When sorrow flows from eye to eye, / And joy from heart to heart. (Hymns #857 stanzas 1-2)