For us to shepherd according to God, we need to become one with God, be constituted with God, live God, express God, represent God, and minister God; the divine life in our being needs to flow to others, and we need to shepherd others according to God by allowing the Lord as life to be ministered to them.
Lord Jesus, make us one with You today. May our whole being be constituted with God and be filled with the riches of Christ! Amen, Lord, constitute us with Your riches. Flow in us and flow through us. May our speaking to others be a ministering of Christ. May we live Christ. May we express Christ. May we express God and represent God as we speak to the saints. Amen, Lord, we want to learn to shepherd according to God by being one with God and by ministering God to others! Amen!
It is so precious for us to realise that the Lord Jesus is the Shepherd of our souls; we can open to Him, we can come to Him as we are, and He shepherds our soul.
Our soul is full of problems, needs, wants, hurts, and desires; we have many problems in our soul, and our soul is very complicated. But we can come to the Lord, open to Him, and He shepherds us. The Lord is always there for us; we simply need to come to Him.
We need to have set times to be with the Lord in the word and in prayer. We may take a walk regularly to just open to Him, converse with Him, and let the Lord come in to speak to us and touch what needs to be touched.
We may have some time every day to just read and pray over a certain book in the New Testament; we exercise our spirit, we pray the word, and we let the Lord speak to us, heal us, shepherd us, and comfort us.
We can testify that the Lord is so rich, so sweet, and so tender as we come to Him to fellowship with Him! He is the Shepherd of our souls, and He dwells in us.
He is eager to shepherd our soul so that He may make us happy and comfortable, and He infuses us with what He is to make us the same as He is.
He not only heals us, comforts us, and cares for us; He also infuses us with Himself, He grows in us, and He gives us a yearning to shepherd others also.
As we enjoy the Lord’s wonderful shepherding, we can also shepherd others. Only when we are under the Lord’s inward, organic shepherding, can we shepherd others, and our shepherding will be according to God, not according to ourselves.
Shepherd According to God by Imparting the Divine Life into others through Teaching and Nourishing
The Lord Jesus as the Head of the Body has given some gifts to the Body; He gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as shepherds and teachers (Eph. 4:11-12).
These gifts are given not to replace the saints or do the work while the saints passively enjoy and listen. Rather, these gifts perfect the saints unto the work of the ministry unto the building up of the Body of Christ.
The elders in the churches have the main function of shepherding the flock of God, even shepherding the saints according to God (Acts 20:28; 1 Pet. 5:1-2).
We also, as saints in the church life, as members of the Body of Christ, need to learn to shepherd the saints according to God.
How can we shepherd others? We need to do it according to God. God in Christ as the Spirit is in our spirit, in our inner man, in the deepest part of our being. The only way we can supply others is if we cooperate with the Lord for the breaking of the outer man so that the inner man may be released and flow out.
Those who are tried before the Lord and whose outer man is broken will be able to release their inner life, and they will bear much fruit.
We need to let the Lord deal with the outer man so that He may flow toward the saints. We shepherd others according to God by imparting the divine life into them through teaching and nourishing.
We need to be apt to teach (1 Tim. 3:2); to nourish others, we need to be apt to teach. This doesn’t mean that we need to know the doctrines in the Bible; rather, we need to be those who minister the life supply to the saints.
A shepherd doesn’t mainly teach the flock; rather, he leads them to places where the sheep can eat and drink.
What the saints need is not more teaching but more nourishing. This is why the Lord Jesus came in His resurrection to commission Peter and us all to shepherd His sheep and feed His lambs (John 21:15-17).
Shepherding is not merely rendering some kind of help to the saints; it is to minister life to them (1 Pet. 5:3).
The main responsibility of the elders is to shepherd the saints by ministering life to them. This means that we all need to pray for one another, especially for those the Lord put us with.
We need to bring the saints before the Lord, mention their names before Him, and be before the Lord to find a way to feed the saints, nourish them, and minister life to them.
If we minister life to one another in this way, we shepherd one another, and the local church will be healthy.
But if we only know how to speak in the meetings or teach others, yet we do not shepherd one another, the church will be weak. Oh Lord!
When we all shepherd one another by ministering Christ to one another, the church will be healthy, living, rich, and strong, for there is much nourishing and cherishing in the church.
May we all exercise to learn the spiritual things so that we may be able to teach the saints in the way of shepherding; our teaching should not be merely to give the saints instructions what to do but rather to nourish the saints so that they may grow in life (1 Tim. 4:6).
Shepherding is a matter of life and in life; we need to pay attention to feeding the saints.
There’s a great need of shepherding among us today. May we all be encouraged to exercise ourselves to become experienced, equipped, and furnished so that we may know how to shepherd the church.
The elders in the church need to take the lead not merely in the church activities or administration but in the matter of shepherding to minister the life supply to the saints. And we all need to learn to shepherd according to God!
Lord Jesus, we want to learn to shepherd according to God in the church life today! Amen, Lord, we come to You in Your word and in the ministry to be filled with the riches of Christ. Fill our being, Lord, and grow in us. Flow in us and flow out through us. May we be those who are tried before the Lord and whose outer man is broken so that the inner life in us may be released and imparted into others for their shepherding! Amen, Lord, we exercise our spirit as we come to Your word to be filled with the rich supply of life both for ourselves and for us to minister Christ to others. May we all learn to shepherd one another according to God by ministering the life supply through teaching and nourishing. Amen, Lord, we want to pray for the saints You put us with and the people that are related to us. We bring their names before You both personally and with our vital group. Lord, flow through us as life into those around us for their shepherding! May we be those who shepherd according to God today! Amen!
To Shepherd According to God, we need to be One with God, Constituted with God, Live God, Express God, Represent God, and Minister God
The only One who can shepherd according to God is God; the only way for us to shepherd according to God is by being one with God.
Shepherding involves taking an all-inclusive tender care of the saints as the flock of God; only God in Christ can do this, so we need to be one with God if we want to shepherd according to God.
In order for us to shepherd according to God, we need to become one with God, be constituted with God, live God, express God, represent God, and minister God.
This means that, for us to shepherd according to God, we must become the same as God in life, nature, expression, and function so that God in us may shepherd others.
Shepherding according to God requires that we are one with God and are constituted with God (John 14:20; 1 Cor. 6:17; Eph. 3:17a; Col. 3:10-11).
The Lord Jesus brought us into Himself, and we are one spirit with Him. He is now making His home in our hearts, and Christ is becoming our all in all.
When Christ is in us, we are in Christ, and we are one with God, we can shepherd according to God. It is only those who live God that can shepherd according to God (Phil. 1:21).
Shepherding is something very profound, for it involves God living in us, us being one with God, and the life-giving Spirit saturating our entire inner being.
God’s eternal purpose is to work Himself into us as our life so that we may express Him (Gen. 1:26; Eph. 1:11; 3:11; 2 Tim. 1:9).
As we partake of the Lord in spirit by coming to His word through much prayer and fellowship, He works Himself into us to be our life. Then, what we express will not be something of ourselves; it will be God Himself.
Many times we express ourselves. We may even stand up in the prophesying meeting and share something, but what we share does not express God but it expresses us. Oh Lord!
We are all in the process; we are all developing; we don’t have to be super-mature believers, but we need to grow. We need to let the Lord make His home in our heart. We need to let Him constitute us and fill us.
We need to have many transactions with Him, especially as we fail again and again, so that He may settle down in our heart, saturate our inward parts with Himself, and have a way to flow through us to others as shepherding.
We are all in the worldwide family of God, and we are growing in life. Just as in a family each one has his portion, and the children are growing unto maturity and developing their portion and their function, so we need to grow today.
We need to learn to cooperate with the Lord day by day so that He may grow in us, constitute us, live in us, express Himself through us, and be ministered through us.
On our side, we open to the Lord, needing His tender care, and we tell Him that we don’t want to express ourselves.
We can’t change ourselves, and we don’t even try; we just open to Him, remain under His tender care, and allow Him to apply the cross to our being.
We allow the Lord to lead us to certain kind of experiences that will deal with our natural being and self-likeness so that we may express the Lord and not express ourselves.
May we open wide to the Lord so that He may operate in us, and may we open to the other members in the Body who are faithful to shepherd us and perfect us.
As those who learn to shepherd according to God, we need to represent God and function as the acting God (2 Cor. 1:3-4, 12, 15-16; 2:10; 10:11; 11:2).
This doesn’t mean that we behave as if we are God; this is to be presumptuous, and this is what Satan did when he rebelled against God. Rather, we are mingled with God, we are blended with the Triune God, and we are filled with God, and we are simply human, Jesusly human.
The more mature someone is, the more someone grows in life unto maturity, the more human that person is. We are human by the indwelling Christ.
We simply express Christ in a very human way, and others are shepherded just by our presence, even though we may not say much.
We have all experienced being around such saints; even when they say, Hello, how are you doing, we feel the Lord’s presence and are shepherded.
To shepherd according to God is to minister God to others. God is the substance of our message, and we impart God into them. How much we can minister God to others, however, depends on our being broken by God for the outflow of life (4:10-12, 16; Heb. 4:12).
If we would minister God to one another, we need to speak words of grace, truth, spirit, and life, ministering the processed God who has been wrought into our being (Eph. 3:16-17a; 4:25, 29; John 6:63). Even as the Lord spoke such words, so we speak today, for we are one with Him and we shepherd according to God.
Lord Jesus, we open to You today. We want to be one with You in our daily living. Make Your home in our heart. We open our inward being to You: work Yourself into us. Constitute us with Yourself. Lord Jesus, we want to live God, express God, represent God, and minister God so that we may shepherd others according to God. Work Yourself into us, Lord Jesus, until we are fully one with You and we express You! Save us from expressing ourselves. May we learn to shepherd according to God by representing God and expressing God! Lord Jesus, we are Yours. Grow in us unto maturity. Make us one with You. We give You our spirit, our soul, and our body; work Yourself into us. Amen, Lord, have Your way to break the outer man so that there would be an outflow of Your life through us. May we shepherd according to God by ministering God to others. We want to be those who speak words of grace, truth, spirit, and life to those around us. Flow through us to those around us. Oh Lord, make us those who shepherd the saints according to God! 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 Ron Kangas on this topic, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1977, vol. 2, pp. 481-491, 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 3.
- Hymns on this topic:
– Jesus, our wonderful Shepherd / Brought us right out of the fold / Into His pasture so plenteous, / Into His riches untold. / Glorious church life, / Feasting from such a rich store! / Here where we’re dwelling in oneness / God commands life evermore. (Hymns #1221 stanza 1 and chorus)
– From my spirit within flows a fountain of life— / The Triune God flowing in me; / God the Father’s the source, Christ the Son is the course, / And the Spirit imparts life to me. / Lord, I treasure the sweet flow of life, / And my soul-life at last I lay down; / O Lord, deepen the pure flow of life; / At Your coming may life be my crown. (Hymns #1191 stanza 1 and chorus)
– Oh, may my spirit flow, / Oh, may it flow! / I ask Thee, gracious Lord, / Oh, may it flow! / My trust in self o’erthrow, / Down from self’s throne I’ll go, / That living water flow / In spirit, Lord. / Oh, may my spirit flow, / Oh, may it flow! / Answer my prayer, dear Lord, / Oh, may it flow! / Not just commune with Thee, / I long to builded be, / Mingle with others free / In spirit, Lord. (Hymns #846 stanzas 5-6)
