Jesus, our wonderful Shepherd

We always dream about having a glorious church life. The chorus of a hymn in our hymnal begins this way—"Glorious church life" (Hymns, #1221). On the one hand, the church is glorious, but on the other hand, no church is glorious outwardly. None of the churches that Paul established were glorious outwardly. They all had problems. When I was a young Christian, I heard someone give a message saying that the best church was the church at Philippi. When I studied the book of Philippians, however, I saw that two sisters were dissenting from one another (4:2). There were also murmurings and reasonings among the Philippians. This is why Paul charged them to do all things without murmurings and reasonings (2:14). If we read Paul's Epistles closely, we can see that the churches he established were not glorious according to our expectation.

Numbers 23:21 says that God has not seen trouble in Israel. Here the word trouble means hard things, evil things that cause people to be troubled. This kind of trouble is even worse than iniquity. In the sight of God, there was neither iniquity nor trouble in His people Israel.

In the same principle, God does not see iniquity or trouble in the church life, because the church is in Christ. In Christ we have been chosen, redeemed, and saved from the bondage of the fall. Therefore, according to God's view, we have been brought out of the fall, out of condemnation, and out of ourselves. Therefore, we may say that in Christ the church life is glorious. The first line in the chorus of a hymn on the church (Hymns, #1221) speaks of the "glorious church life." Since the church life is glorious only in Christ, I suggest that we add the words "in Christ" at the end of this line and sing, "Glorious church life in Christ!" We may want to make a further adjustment and sing, "Glorious church life, in Christ but not in ourselves!" In ourselves the church life is not glorious, but in Christ the church life truly is glorious.

There is a hymn that speaks of the Lord Jesus as the One who brought us out of the fold and into Himself as the pasture:

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The pasture is a place of tender grass; that is, a pasture is a place full of the supply of life. When sheep are in the pasture, they do not lack food. Today our pasture is the resurrected Christ as the life-giving Spirit. In our daily Christian life we should have the definite realization that we are in the pasture enjoying Christ as the rich supply of life.

There is a hymn which speaks of Jesus as the wonderful Shepherd who brought us out of the fold into the pasture that is so good to our spirit.

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A flock is in the pasture during the daytime. In a similar way, if in our Christian experience we are in the pasture, we shall also be in the daylight. The brightest time for us is when we are in the spirit enjoying the pasture. But our darkest time is when we are in the flesh. When we are in the flesh, we are full of lust, self, and the old man. What darkness that is! Praise the Lord that when we are in the spirit we are full of light!

Jesus Christ the Lord is life to us. According to John 1:4, this life is the light of men. Therefore, when we have life, we have light. Moreover, when we have light, we are in the day. We thank the Lord that sovereignly He has brought us out of the folds into the pasture and out of night into day.