Christ as our Shepherd is the High Priest trimming the wicks and supplying the oil for the churches as the golden lampstands to shine brightly; He trims away anything negative that hinders the shining, and He adds the fresh supply of the Spirit for us to shine more brightly.
Lord Jesus, thank You for being our High Priest who walks in the midst of the golden lampstands to see our situation, observe us, and oversee us. We open to Your wonderful shepherding. Oh Lord, we exercise our spirit to be one spirit with You today. We want to accept the trimming and the infilling. We simply open, Lord, and we want to have an ear to hear what You are speaking to the churches. Trim away anything negative that hinders the shining. Add more supply of the Spirit for us to shine brighter! Amen!
The New Testament shows us that our wonderful Christ did not merely ascend to the heavens and now is waiting for the church to be prepared for Him to come back to rapture His faithful believers but even more, He is very active, busy, and living in His heavenly ministry.
For example, right at the beginning of Acts we see how Christ as the Son of Man was standing at the right hand of the throne of God, watching eagerly how His disciple, His brother, Stephen, was being persecuted and martyred.
He later appeared to Saul on his way to Damascus, and He converted the fiercest persecutor of the church into the most zealous promoter of Christ and writer of the Bible.
He is in His heavenly ministry doing many things, including arranging the whole world situation for His people to receive God’s salvation, be transformed, and be glorified.
He is interceding for us, for each one of us, for He is at the right hand of God, always living to intercede.
He is our High Priest who is touched with the feeling of our weaknesses, for He was just like us, and He is waiting for us to come forward to the throne of grace to receive mercy and fight grace for timely help.
He is also our great Shepherd, the One who takes care of the inward situation of our being and the real condition of our person; He shepherds us by cherishing us in His humanity and by nourishing us in His divinity.
May we learn to open to the heavenly ministry of Christ day by day, even moment by moment, so that we may be infused with Him, we may enjoy Him, and we may even correspond to Him.
He wants to incorporate our ministry with His ministry so that, whatever He does and speaks in the heavens, we also do and speak on the earth. He wants to gain us as His continuation, His reproduction and increase on earth to express Him and represent Him.
As the Heavenly High Priest, Christ Trims the Wicks of the Lamps of the Lamsptand, Cutting off all the negative things that Hinder our Shining
We may wonder today how does the Lord shepherd us, for He is in the heavens and we are here on earth, and many times we may not feel His presence in a clear way.
If we read Revelation chapters 1-3 we see how Christ is shepherding us; He is the heavenly High Priest walking among the golden lampstands, and He sees the situation of each and every church.
He speaks to the churches; He gives a particular word to each of the churches, and He trims the wicks of the lamps of the lampstands for them to shine brightly.
Just as the high priest would do in the Old Testament when he entered into the Holy Place every morning, so Christ trims the wicks of the lamps of the lampstand, cutting off all the negative things which hinder our shining (Exo. 25:38).
He is engaged in much activity, for He sees our condition, He understands us, He knows our situation, and He is faithful to speak to us so that He may remove by trimming anything that is charred, black, and gives smoke.
Sometimes there may even be some major problems in the church, and the Lord inwardly operates in the saints to remove any negative feeling, any animosity, and any offense; He removes by trimming anything negative.
Thank the Lord that the Lord Jesus as the High Priest in His humanity, comes to snuff out all the negative things!
As we come together with the saints, we may sense some smoke coming from someone who is going through some things or has spent a lot of time in the world; the Lord gently comes and trims away anything that is negative.
Christ as our Shepherd is taking care of us both personally and corporately as the churches by being the heavenly High Priest who cherishes us in His humanity and nourishes us in His divinity.
Thank the Lord that today in His recovery He is the High Priest in His humanity. He is even as we are; He went through the human sufferings, He is easily touched with the feeling of our weaknesses, and He knows our situation (Heb. 4:15).
He is simply waiting for us to come forward to the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace for timely help, for He as our heavenly High Priest understands us and ministers to us (v. 16).
Today the churches are the golden lampstands, and sometimes the lamps of the lampstand are charred; that is, the wick is charred and it offers smoke, not light. Oh Lord!
In the Old Testament the lamps of the lampstand were trimmed by snuffing every morning (Exo. 30:7). This is what the Lord does today.
If we read chapters 2 and 3 in Revelation we will see how the Lord exposes the charred wicks in the local churches so that He may trim them away.
He spoke of Judaism becoming so evil that it is the synagogue of Satan (Rev. 2:9); Judaism had become something satanic. Oh Lord!
He also exposed the worldliness in the churches, for in 2:12-17 He exposed how the church in Pergamos was married with the world.
What hinders our shining is our being in the world and being married to the world. We are in the world, but we are not of the world.
If we love the Lord and the things in it, the love of God the Father is not in us. When we love the world, we offer not a bright light but much smoke, for what the world has to offer is not Christ but things of Satan. Oh Lord Jesus! How much we need the Lord to trim away our worldliness!
Christ speaks of Jezebel, that evil woman, and all that she represents; all these things need to be trimmed away (v. 20).
He speaks of losing the first love and coming back to do the first works (2:2-4). When we lose our first love for the Lord, we may do things for Him with our natural zeal or out of obligation, but the Lord’s presence, His shining, is not with us.
May we repent and return to the Lord, love Him with the first love and do the first works so that He may intensify His shining and we would not lose His testimony!
To the church in Laodicea, the Lord speaks concerning being lukewarm. When we are lukewarm, we are like a charred wick of a lamp, not shining brightly but giving out smoke.
Oh Lord, we need to be hot in love for the Lord and cold toward the world and the things of Satan!
May we allow the Lord to shine on us through His word! May we allow Him to shine on our old religious concepts, which are against God’s economy, and may we let Him trim them away.
Our concepts, even our spiritual concepts, hinder the shining of the local churches. The Lord, as the High Priest comes in to trim away by cutting anything that hinders the shining, and He does it through His speaking.
We need His speaking. We open to Him!
Lord Jesus, we open to You as the High Priest who trims the wicks of the lampstand to remove any charred part that gives out smoke. We open to Your speaking. Shine on us. We come to You as we are. You know our situation. You are our heavenly High Priest, and You sympathise with us. Oh Lord Jesus, we want to shine forth for You as Your testimony in this dark age. Remove by trimming anything that hinders the shining. We open to You concerning our religious concepts. Remove any concept that is not of You. Oh Lord, shine on our worldliness; may we love the Lord and not love the world. Save us from being married to the world. May we love You with the first love and best love. May we be saved from losing our first love for the Lord. Oh Lord Jesus, what about our lukewarmness. We want to pay the price to buy the eyesalve so we can see, buy the clothes to be covered, and buy gold so that we may be rich. Keep shining on us, dear Lord, as the heavenly High Priest, to remove anything that hinders the shining! Amen!
Open to the Lord’s Trimming and Infilling to Shine Brightly as the Golden Lampstand
The Lord as our Shepherd, takes care of us in His heavenly ministry by being the High Priest who, on the one hand, trims away anything negative, and on the other hand, adds the fresh supply of the Spirit.
In His humanity, Christ as our High Priest cherishes us, causing us to feel comfortable, pleasant, and nice in His presence.
As we open to Him, He has a way to shine on us and trim any charred wick, anything negative in us that hinders the shining.
We need to open to the Lord’s trimming and infilling so that we may shine brightly as the golden lampstand!
The high priest in the Old Testament trimmed the wicks of the lamps of the lampstand, and he also supplied them with oil (Exo. 39:7; 27:20).
The Lord does not only shine on our weaknesses, lacks, sins, and shortcomings; He also adds the supply as He shines.
We see this in Revelation 2-3, where the Lord as the High Priest was walking among the seven local churches in Asia and spoke to each one of them a particular word.
As He was speaking, He was shining on their situation to expose any charred wick and remove it by cutting.
He also introduced Himself as the supply for the church, and He gave an incentive to the overcoming saints in that church, a reward for their overcoming.
In His humanity, Christ cherishes us so that we may open to Him and accept His trimming; we need to open to the Lord’s trimming.
In His divinity, Christ nourishes us to add the fresh supply of the Spirit, the supply for us to overcome and shine brighter.
Christ doesn’t only expose the problems in the church; He also supplies the church with all that He is, even with the particular aspect of Christ that the church needs, so that the church may be revived, vitalised, and shine brightly as the golden lampstand.
We need to open to Christ’s trimming and infilling; as He trims, He fills, and as He cuts something off, He adds more of Himself as the supply.
We can testify of this both in our personal life and in the church life.
We may have to travel for a long time to be with the saints in a conference, and we may be quite tired and grumpy; however, as we exercise our spirit, touch the Lord, and open to the Lord in the meetings with the saints, He is the One who trims away any grumpiness and tiredness, and He adds the fresh supply of the Spirit to us for us to shine brighter.
The charred part of the wick, the snuff, signifies things that are not according to God’s purpose and which need to be cut off.
Things coming out of our flesh, our natural man, our self, and our old creation are not according to God’s purpose and do not help the shining of the lampstand; the Lord shines on us, exposes us, and trims the charred wicks.
At the same time, He adds the fresh supply of the Spirit, for we have a greater capacity to be filled with the Lord.
Christ trims away all the differences among the churches so that they may be the same in essence, appearance, and expression (1 Cor. 1:10; 2 Cor. 12:18; Phil. 2:2).
Christ trims away the wrongdoings, shortages, failures, and mistakes, and He adds the Spirit as the supply for us to shine brightly and be the Lord’s testimony in this age.
May we learn to exercise our spirit and be under the Lord’s speaking day by day.
He is faithful to speak to us and expose what the problems are, what we need to deal with, and what hinders the shining. He is faithful to supply us with the Spirit for the infilling.
May we open to Christ’s trimming and infilling so that we may shine brightly as the golden lampstands, the testimony of Jesus on the earth today!
Lord Jesus, we open to Your shining! We open to Your trimming and infilling! Have a way to shine on us, Lord, and expose anything in us and of us that does not match You. Amen, Lord, remove by trimming through Your shining anything that hinders the shining of the lampstands! You see the things coming out of our flesh, our natural man, our self, and our old creation; we open to Your shining! Snuff the wicks of the lamps of the lampstand and add more of the Spirit for the shining to be brighter! Amen, Lord, we open to the trimming and the infilling! We want the infilling, so we open to the trimming! We say Amen to Your shining and we allow You to remove anything in us and in the church that hinders the shining of the lampstands! Thank You for cherishing us in Your humanity for us to feel comfortable and pleasant. We open to You and we let You trim and fill us. Praise the Lord, Christ trims away all the differences among the churches so that they may be the same in essence, appearance, and expression! 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, 1980, vol. 2, “The Mending Ministry of John,” ch. 14, 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 5.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Let us go forth unto Him, / Not only with our lamps trimmed, / Buy the oil now lest they dim— / Jesus is coming again! (Hymns #1302 stanza 5)
– The great high priestly robe He wears, / For every church He fully cares: / He trims the lamp, the oil supplies; / He makes them burn, flames in His eyes. / A golden girdle on His breast— / His work is done, and from His rest / He unto all the churches pours / Himself in love, the treasure store. (Hymns #1184 stanzas 3-4)
– Our lamps to shine forth must be trimmed / By calling on Thee every day. / In spirit we must exercise / To burn all the oldness away. / But there is a much deeper need: / Reality in us must grow, / Until it makes home in our hearts, / Till oil in our vessels o’erflows. (Hymns #1303 stanza 3)
