Shepherding is taking All-inclusive Tender Care of Others by Cherishing & Nourishing

In the epistles of Peter we see the matter of shepherding according to God; shepherding is to take all-inclusive tender care of the flock, taking care of all the needs of the sheep, and shepherding includes cherishing and nourishing, being like a nursing mother and an exhorting father.

Amen, Lord, may we open to Your shepherding today. Shepherd us and bring us on with You to love You. Amen, Lord, we love You. You know that we love You. We want to be one with You to shepherd others also. May we learn to shepherd the saints according to God. Oh Lord, keep us abiding in You today! Amen!

This week we come to a precious matter in the writings of Peter, Shepherding According to God. We may have heard this matter before.

We may have prayed over this and we may have studied this quite a lot. In the context of our experiencing, enjoying, and expressing Christ in the writings of Peter, we come to the matter of Shepherding according to God.

On the one hand, shepherding is apparently related to our practice. Just like preaching the gospel, teaching the Bible, baptising the new ones, etc, we need to shepherd one another.

However, in actuality, this matter of shepherding involves a lot of our experience of Christ and our enjoyment of Christ so that we may express Christ as the Chief Shepherd, the Shepherd of our souls.

Before we can practice anything, even before we can shepherd others, we need to see the heavenly vision.

We don’t just practice shepherding just to care for others and do something, work out something. We need to see a vision. Shepherding is for the working out of God’s eternal economy.

Without shepherding, God’s economy has no way to be worked out. Both the Old and the New Testament, the matter of the shepherd is present.

It is not enough for us just to see that there’s a need to shepherd this or that person; if we go to shepherd anyone, what do we shepherd them with? Is it just our zeal and our good heart?

Do we just have a good concern, with a desire to bring backsliding ones back to the meeting? What do we shepherd people with? We need to shepherd others with Christ.

This means that we need to be constituted with Christ. We need to not only care for others but we ourselves need to enjoy and experience Christ so that we may express Christ.

Thank the Lord that He is still shepherding us today. Though we have many shortcomings in our shepherding others, we need to realise our weaknesses, our shortcomings, and our failures. We need to repent to the Lord and allow Him to shepherd us.

May we open to the Lord in this matter of shepherding according to God.

Shepherding is to Take All-inclusive Tender Care of Others, being Commissioned by the Lord, out of Love for Him

What is shepherding? According to what we see both in the Old and the New Testament, shepherding is to take all-inclusive tender care of God’s flock. Shepherding refers to taking care of all the needs of the sheep (John 21:15-17; Acts 20:28).

We see this in John 21, a chapter that seems to be added to the Gospel of John, where the Lord in His heavenly ministry comes to shepherd Peter and also to commission him to shepherd His sheep.

In this chapter, we see that Peter, after the Lord resurrected, at one point said that he would go fishing, and some brothers joined him.

In a sense, this is to backslide, to go back to his former occupation.

We may say that Peter, being discouraged, went back to what he used to do before, and some of the disciples joined him in this. They tried and tried and tried, and the whole night they were fishing, but they did not catch any fish.

Then, the Lord Jesus from the shore called them, Little children, did you catch anything? He didn’t rebuke them. He did not tell them off. He didn’t ask them what was wrong with them, why are they there.

He simply asked them if they caught anything, if they have anything to eat. So He asked them to put the net on the right side of the boat, and when they did this, they caught an abundance of fish. More than 150 fish!

John recognised it was the Lord, and Peter jumped into the water and swam to the shore. When they all arrived at the shore, the Lord was there preparing breakfast for them, not with the fish they caught. He simply gave them breakfast to eat.

Peter was discouraged. He was losing faith. He was anxious for his livelihood. He went back to fishing. But nothing worked, no matter how much they tried.

So the Lord came to meet him, and without reprimanding him or rebuking him, the Lord gave them breakfast. This is shepherding.

We may be like Peter today in many ways; we may love the Lord, but something happens and we deny the Lord. We get discouraged. We may even go back to what we used to do before, and some saints may even join us in this.

We may lose faith, and we may not have the heart to meet with the saints anymore. We may be quite busy with the things of the world, but it seems that nothing happens, there’s no result, and nothing is working out. And then the Lord comes to meet us.

He invites us to have breakfast with Him; He already has a feast prepared for us. He may not even touch our failures, our backsliding, and our mistakes.

He simply gives us to eat and drink. He is so tender. He is the Shepherd of the sheep, and He takes all-inclusive tender care of each of the sheep.

Though we may be discouraged, though we may backslide, and though we may lose faith, the Lord comes to meet us where we are. And then He asks us as He asked Peter, Do you love Me more than these (John 21:15-17)?

As He feeds us and nourishes us, taking an all-inclusive tender care of our needs, He recovers and rekindles our love for Him. He cares for our heart, and He wants us to love Him.

If we love Him, eat Him, are nourished with Him, and are rekindled in our love for Him, we are commissioned by Him to shepherd His sheep.

As He restores our love for Him, He also commissions us to take all-inclusive tender care of the saints. He wants us to feed His sheep, feed His lambs, and take care of His people.

He commissions us, those who have failed and are being restored by His all-inclusive tender care, to also do the same with others, one with the Lord. How wonderful and sweet our Lord is! And how much we love Him!

Lord Jesus, we love You! We love You as the Shepherd of our souls. Thank You for loving us and giving Yourself up for us. Thank You for caring for us tenderly. We appreciate Your all-inclusive tender care for us. Oh Lord, even when we’re down, when we are discouraged and sad, You come to us where we are to just feed us. Thank You for laying a feast before us so that we may be nourished. Thank You for cherishing us tenderly in Your humanity so that we may feed on Your riches in Your divinity. Oh Lord, though we fail so much, though we make so many mistakes, and though we may backslide, You come to us to shepherd us. We respond in love to You. We love You, Lord. You know that we love You. We give ourselves to You. We open to Your shepherding. We want to experience, enjoy, and express You as the Shepherd. May we be one with You to feed Your sheep and feed Your lambs out of love for You. Amen, Lord, we love You, and in love we want to shepherd others according to God!

Shepherd Others by Cherishing and Nourishing them as a Nursing Mother and an Exhorting Father

To shepherd others is not only to make them feel happy so that they stay in the church life, nor is it just to give them teachings to nourish them.

The two basic elements of shepherding are cherishing and nourishing (Eph. 5:29).

After we preach the gospel and help some sinners become children of God, we need to encourage them to be baptised and go on with the Lord.

It is not enough, however, to merely help others be saved and baptised; we need to shepherd them according to God. When a mother gives birth to a child, she is not done with this; she tenderly cares for the little one, cherishing the baby and nourishing the baby.

Many times the baby doesn’t even know what to say to his mother, so he cries; his cry causes the mother to embrace and hold the baby to her bosom, and the baby is at peace and comforted.

Then, she can feed the baby, and the baby grows. Many times the baby cries because he is hungry; at other times, however, the baby simply needs the mother’s embrace and love.

When a little one cries, he “prays” to his mother, asking her to cherish him. She picks him up, puts him in her bosom, and he is at peace; he stops crying, because he has been fostered with tender care.

This shows us how we should be with one another, especially with the newly baptised believers. To shepherd others is to comfort them, to soothe them, to nurture them with tender love, and to foster them with tender care.

We need to shepherd others by cherishing and nourishing them as a nursing mother and as an exhorting father.

The best way to care for the newly saved believers is in their homes; we need to visit them in their homes and cherish them in the Lord’s humanity so that we may also be able to feed them with something of the riches of Christ.

In shepherding others, we should first cherish them to make them happy, and then we should nourish them.

For example, this is what Paul did in writing to the Colossians; in Colossians 2:2 he prayed that their hearts would be comforted so that they would be knit together in love and unto all the riches of the full assurance of understanding, for them to know and enjoy the mystery of God, Christ.

On the one hand, our hearts need to be comforted; on the other hand, we need to come to the full knowledge of the mystery of God, Christ.

This is to take an all-inclusive tender care of others, even as the Lord does this to us.

Paul did this also with the Thessalonian believers; he told them, We were gentle in your midst, as a nursing mother would cherish her own children (1 Thes. 2:7).

He likened himself to a nursing mother in his care for the newly saved and baptised believers in that city.

After we preach the gospel and help the newly saved believers to be baptised, we need to take care of them in a new way, an organic way, to shepherd them according to God.

In the small groups in the church life we need to study this and be revolutionised in our way of preaching the gospel and caring for the new ones.

We need to preach the gospel in an organic way to beget sinners as children of God, making them the regenerated members of the Body of Christ.

Then, we must continue to care for them, shepherding them according to God, especially by visiting them in their home week after week.

We should not just help others get saved and baptised, and then hope for the best, thinking that now they will go on with the Lord on their own.

We used to take this way, and this is the way taken in Christianity today; no wonder so many are saved and so many are also lost after they are saved! Oh Lord!

Paul’s way is to cherish those whom he saved through the gospel, and he was like a nursing mother and an exhorting father to them (v. 11).

On the one hand, we need to cherish them in the humanity of Jesus to make them happy; we don’t use worldly means or gimmicks to do this but rather, we learn from the Lord to be Jesusly human to others.

On the other hand, we need to nourish others in the divinity of Christ as an exhorting father, imparting the riches of Christ into them; we do this not by giving them doctrines but by exercising our spirit to minister Christ to them.

We are all commissioned by the Lord to cherish and nourish the newly baptised believers as the Lord’s lambs.

To feed the lambs, we need to love the Lord and abide in Him.

When we abide in the Lord as branches in the vine, we will receive the rich nourishment and sweet cherishing from Him, and we will also cherish and nourish others to shepherd them according to God.

Lord Jesus, we want to learn from You to shepherd others according to God. Amen, Lord, we open to Your cherishing and nourishing. Thank You for caring for us in love. Thank You for Your all-inclusive tender care in and through the Body. We want to learn from You to cherish and nourish others also. Amen, Lord, may we be like a nursing mother who would cherish her own children. Grant us Your tender feelings and care for the newly baptised believers so that we may cherish them in the Lord’s humanity. Oh Lord, we love You! We open to Your loving care. May You love the new ones and care for them through us. We come to You to enjoy You, dear Lord, and we come together with the saints in our vital group to shepherd one another, be built together, and learn to shepherd the new ones. May we be those who abide in the Lord today, loving Him, and functioning to shepherd the new ones! Amen, Lord, make us like a nursing mother cherishing the new ones and like an exhorting father imparting the riches of Christ into the new ones!

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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, 1989, vol. 1, “The Practical and Organic Building Up of the Church,” pp. 321-322, 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 1.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – O Lord, do nourish us; You are the food we need; / As we are eating You, we’ll be transformed indeed; / We’re fully satisfied as on Yourself we feed, / So nourish us, O Lord, we pray. / O Lord, do cherish us, as on Thyself we feed; / Warm us so tenderly and meet our every need. / Our hardness soften, Lord, till we are Yours indeed; / Oh, cherish us, dear Lord, we pray. (Hymns #1135 stanzas 3-4)
  – Christ in love Himself has given / That the Church be sanctified, / Without blemish, spot, or wrinkle, / To become His glorious bride. / He does nourish her and cherish / As a man his body treats; / He and she become one body— / Thus the myst’ry very great. (Hymns #823 stanza 8)
  – 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)