Tag Archives: prophets

GIFTED, BUILT UP, AND EQUIPPED – 12

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Ephesians 4:11-12 NLT‬
[11]”Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. [12] Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ.”

Despite Paul’s plea for his readers (and all those who follow after the them) to live out the new lives they have been given, they knew and we know that it is impossible to do this without help.

However, God has given us His Spirit, our Helper, who teaches and guides us from within, but we also need knowledge, information, instruction, to know what to do and how to put our new lives into practice.

So, Jesus has also given to His church people whom the Holy Spirit equips to be our human teachers. Each of these people has a specific function (emphasis on ‘function’, not ‘office’) in the church, to equip and train God’s people with knowledge and practice, as Jesus did with His disciples, so that, together, the church may reach its goal of love and unity.

These five groups of people – apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers – are not self-proclaimed or self-appointed. They are given, by Jesus, to His church. They function…they do not rule or have any authority over the body of Christ. They are not superior to or office bearers in the church. They are servants, serving the church by using their gifts to equip the saints to do what they train the church to do.

What is their function, then? Each of these ‘gifts’ helps to hone those who are similarly gifted. No individual has all the gifts but as we live and work together as the church, we display the nature of Jesus in His completeness.

‭Ephesians 4:7 NLT‬
[7] “However, he has given each one of us a special gift through the generosity of Christ.”

The church is a mosaic of gifts. Each member has a specific function, which creates a complete picture of Jesus in His body. We are all ‘living stones’, built together to form a temple in which we worship the Father in spirit and in truth.

A mature church has as its goal, to be a witness to Jesus – His incarnation, His life, His death, His resurrection – as the foundation of their love for one another and the unity that binds them together. These qualities are not possible outside of the Holy Spirit who lives in the church as well as in each member.

By contrast, the love and unity that might exist in pockets in the community are fragile and easily disintegrate in the face of the words and actions of selfish and self–centred people. The opposite is true in the church.

‭Ephesians 4:13, 15-16 NLT‬
[13] “This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ….
[15] Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church. [16] He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.”

Unlike the fragile unity in the world, the unity in the church grows with increasing knowledge and experience. The church is not an organisation. The church is a living organism, united to Jesus, its head, drawing its life from Him, and growing in faith and obedience through the Holy Spirit who works out the life of Jesus in us and in the church.

This divine/human partnership is the only way in which the church can be the WITNESS Jesus intends us to be to the world. The early church, reflected in the book of Acts, knew this power. The church grew supernaturally through its witness, both to the message of Jesus and to the life of Jesus in them that the message produced.

‭Acts of the Apostles 5:12-14 NLT‬
[12] “The apostles were performing many miraculous signs and wonders among the people. And all the believers were meeting regularly at the Temple in the area known as Solomon’s Colonnade. [13] But no one else dared to join them, even though all the people had high regard for them. [14] Yet more and more people believed and were brought to the Lord—crowds of both men and women.”

So, dear brothers and sisters, the life of Jesus bears fruit in the church only as its members faithfully follow Paul’s ‘therefore’s’. Without the body living in vital union with its head, the church of Jesus becomes just another sterile religion, of no consequence in the world except to be in competition with all other religions.

The Father has made provision for us to grow towards our goal but we must respond with faith and obedience to fulfil His purpose for the church now and in eternity.

HIGHLY PRIVILEGED PEOPLE

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HIGHLY PRIVILEGED PEOPLE

Concerning this salvation, the prophets who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when He predicted the sufferings of the Messiah and the glories that would follow. It was revealed them that they were not serving themselves when they spoke of the things that have now been told you by those who have preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven. Even angels long to look into these things (1 Peter 1:10-12).

In these three long and complicated sentences, what exactly was Peter getting at? We have to look at these thoughts in the context of what he had already written.

His readers were a rejected and abused people. Some of them were Jews who had embraced Jesus as their Messiah and others had come to faith in Christ from worshipping idols and practicing wicked things in the name of their religion. Instead of being recognised as upright citizens, they were despised and rejected by both Jews and Gentiles because they no longer fitted in. They would not acknowledge Caesar as Lord and they refused to take part in idolatrous worship and the practices of their pagan neighbours.

It was natural that they should feel like outcasts. One can sense, from Peter’s encouragement, that they were in danger of forgetting who they really were. It was his intention to show them who they were in God’s eyes regardless of what the people in the world thought of them and how they treated them. He had to put their circumstances into perspective so that they would not lose heart and go back to their old ways.

Far from their suffering being the evidence of God’s neglect, it was proof that they were genuine children of God. Rejected by the world? They were chosen, holy and beloved of God. Suffering for their faith? God was purifying their confidence in Him. They had reason to rejoice because, far from being the off-scourings of the earth, they were a privileged and blessed people.

They were so blessed, in fact, that they experienced what prophets and angels could not! God’s prophets of old were the most privileged of all His people. They were called and anointed with His Spirit to stand between God and His people. They stood in the presence of God to hear His word in order to speak it to His people. They had access to God’s counsel in ways which kings and people and even the priests did not. They not only understood what God was doing in the lives of His people in their current circumstances – they also had insights into future events.

It was from those who lived in intimate fellowship with God that we can draw an accurate picture of the Messiah long before He arrived on the earth. When we compare Jesus with the predictions the prophets made about Him centuries before, we come up with a perfect match. How else can we be sure that the man who claimed to be the Son of God and sent from God was who He said He was?

But there was one thing the prophets could not do – experience what they predicted because it was for a future time. They could only see it from afar. They would experience the benefits of His death because He was ‘the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world’ but they would never experience the temporal blessings which are part of the package of salvation.  However much they longed to be a part of what they had written, it was not to be.

Only those to whom Peter was writing and all those who follow in their footsteps of faith are privileged to be participants in the blessings Jesus, the Messiah brought when He came to earth.

Why is it important that believers go through the kind of things of which Peter wrote? Why does God not snatch us out of here the moment we believe? Firstly, of course, He needs witnesses to live and speak of His grace to a broken world. But secondly, and this is the part we don’t like, He takes time to sanctify and purify our hearts from the corruption of the world.

While we are here on earth in the midst of the world’s brokenness and wickedness, we are serving our apprenticeship for the life to come. God is grooming us for our role as co-rulers with Christ on His restored and perfected earth. He is teaching us to reign in life now so that we can reign with Him then. He cannot use untrained and untested rookies for so great a responsibility! How we function now will determine where we function then.

Far from being underdogs, Peter had to ensure that his readers understood who they were, why they were suffering and what their privileges were so that they would persevere, not with gritted teeth but with joyful purpose because, in God they were going somewhere – into the eternal realm of unimaginable blessing.

So are we if we hang in there!

Scripture taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

 

FUNCTIONS – NOT TITLES

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FUNCTIONS – NOT TITLES

But to each of us, grace has been given as Christ apportioned it. That is why it says:

‘When He ascended on high, He led captives in His train and gave gifts to men.’

(What does “He ascended” mean except that He descended to the lower, earthly regions? He who descended is the very one who ascended higher than all the heavens in order to fill the whole universe). It was He who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4: 7-13).

Here we have another one of Paul’s monstrous mouthfuls of revelation truth! From where did Paul get these lofty ideas if not from the Holy Spirit?

According to Paul, first of all, every function a believer fulfils in the body of Christ is based on our unity in Him. There is not one person in the church who is superior in person or function to another. We all fit together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle or the tiles in a mosaic. If one is missing, the picture is incomplete. There is no such thing as priesthood and laity, for every believer is a priest since we are all to worship God by offering the appointed and appropriate sacrifices to God.

To Him who loves us and has freed us from our sins by His blood and has made us to become a kingdom and priests to serve His God and Father – to Him be glory and power for ever and ever. Amen (Rev. 1: 5b-6).

The consistent message of Scripture is that Jesus Christ is head of His church, which is His body. It is impossible for the church to be the body of Christ and yet for some fallible mortal to be the head. He alone has the right to lead and direct His body according to His will. Those whom He has chosen to have human responsibilities in the church must, first of all, be absolutely one with Him, walking in intimate fellowship with Him and submitting to Him as Lord in all.

Secondly, Jesus has the right to appoint people to functions within His church and to gift them with the ability to carry out those functions for Him and through Him. Spiritual gifts do not belong to the people who exercise them. They belong to Jesus and they are to be used to build up the members of His body, not to lord it over them with assumed superiority and authority. Gifts are given for service, not for aggrandisement. Every person to whom He has given a responsibility in His body is accountable to Him for its use and influence.

Thirdly, within the body, we are all subject to and accountable to one another. Mutual submission in humility is the hallmark of unity. Even those whom Jesus has appointed to leadership positions and positions of authority are not above correction. The armour of God makes no provision to protect our backs. Just as the soldiers in the Roman army marched in rank, their shields protecting their chests from flying arrows and their fellow soldiers protecting their backs, so we, as we do life together, are to cover one another’s backs.

The tragedy within the church is that we act more like the world than the body of Christ. The church is neither a business nor an organisation. It is a living organism, functioning like a human body in absolute unity because we are to be a reflection of God, the Three-in-One. When a system or a cell malfunctions in a human body, it becomes sick and will die if the condition is not cured. There is no competition in the body for prestige or position, yet local expressions of Christ’s body are often a hotbed of conflict. Power struggles, not unity and harmony, tear the people apart. Selfish ambition, not love and humility, drives its leaders. Men masquerade as apostles and prophets, claiming and loving the titles rather than serving the body in the humility of their function.

Isn’t it any wonder that the church has become irrelevant in the world and the butt of jokes rather than the evidence of Christ’s invasion of earth to bring the kingdom of God into sin-infested humanity! Jesus gave His disciples two sure-fire signs of the truth of His coming and evidence of the change He brought to the human heart.

A new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this, all men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another (John 13: 34-35).

My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me (John 17: 20-21).

Love and unity – these are impossible requirements for people whom the Holy Spirit has never changed from within. These qualities in a group of people reveal a power at work far greater than human effort. Our selfish and independent hearts will never submit to any other outside of the power of God’s Spirit.

True followers of Jesus are to imitate Him. He is humble and gentle in heart, a servant leader. He requires that we exercise the gifts He has given in His spirit and disposition,, otherwise we are nothing but wolves in sheep’s clothing.

Scripture is taken from THE HOLY BIBLE, NEW INTERNATIONAL VERSION®, NIV® Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.

Have you read my first book, Learning to be a Son – The Way to the Father’s Heart (Copyright © 2015, Partridge Publishing)? You’ll love it!

ISBN: Softcover – 978-1-4828-0512-3, eBook 978-4828-0511-6

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THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – THE SCRIPTURES MUST BE FULFILLED

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THE SCRIPTURES MUST BE FULFILLED

“Then He said, ‘Everything I told you when I was with you comes to this: All things written about me in the Law of Moses, in the Prophets and in the Psalms have to be fulfilled.'” Luke 24:44.

The prophetic fingerprints of Messiah are woven into the story of a nation, the Hebrews, from its beginning as a single and initially childless couple, through the growth of this family in Egypt, their miraculous deliverance from slavery and their journey to, and life in the Promised Land.

It is a record of their chequered history as a people who persisted in rejecting their God and living in rebellion against His teachings. Their disobedience and idolatry brought them back into slavery to another wicked and idolatrous world power, Babylon, from which God again graciously restored them to their own land although it remained occupied territory under Persia, Greece and Rome.

The most important details of Messiah’s life, death and resurrection are encoded in this book, miraculously preserved and passed down over a period of four thousand years. It was written by some forty authors from every ancient walk of life and yet it is one story, a record of the Creator God’s dealings with man, and specifically the Hebrews, whom He chose to be His own people, and their response to Him.

God’s master stroke was to weave the story of Messiah into the story of His people as His signature of authenticity. What other religious book contains a signature like that – with one hundred per cent accuracy of fulfillment? Through the prophet Isaiah, He claimed supremacy over the idols they so loved to worship, which were powerless to speak and act, let alone predict the future.

Apart from His resurrection, what else would have convinced His followers that He was who He said He was? For three years they had followed Him. They had walked with Him, listened to Him and watched him do miracles and interact with all kinds of people. Their experience of Him had brought the growing conviction that He was their Messiah, but the events of the previous few days blew their hopes apart. They thought they were the victims of a terrible hoax.

Jesus brought them back to the Scriptures they knew so well. He was the one of whom the writers of their sacred books had written, whose fingerprints were on every page of their carefully-copied scrolls. He took them through their Bible, book by book, and highlighted every prophecy that He had fulfilled until they were convinced beyond doubt that He was their long-awaited Messiah.

If these men, who were fearful and faithless until Jesus opened the Scriptures to them, were so convinced of His identity as Messiah and Lord that many of them paid the supreme price for the truth, can we not take their testimony at face value and trust the person and words of Jesus as they did? That conviction, empowered by the Holy Spirit who came on the day of Pentecost and took up residence inside them, energised their lives and gave them the courage to die for their testimony.

The same Jesus is Lord today and the same Spirit energises us to stake our lives and our destiny on Him because everything written about Him in the Scriptures is true.

THE GOSPEL OF LUKE – EVERYTHING IN THE SCRIPTURES

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EVERYTHING IN THE SCRIPTURES

“Then He said to them, ‘So thick-headed! So slow-hearted! Why can’t you simply believe all that the prophets said? Don’t you see that these things had to happen, that the Messiah had to suffer and only then enter into His glory?’ Then He started at the beginning, with the Books of Moses, and went on through all the Prophets, pointing out everything in the Scriptures that referred to Him.” Luke 24:25-27 (The Message).

What a Bible study! No one ever has, and no one ever will explain the Scriptures as Jesus did to those two that day! All the learned Jewish rabbis from ancient times could not have understood the Word of God as He did because He was both author and subject of the book.

Perhaps the message of these verses is the same for us today as it was for them then – we are thick-headed and slow-hearted because of our ignorance of the Scriptures. God has not only given us His Word but He has given us His Spirit to explain and interpret His Word. And yet we have so many teachings and practices that have “evolved” from the Bible that are not true to the Bible because, unlike the noble Bereans who “examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.” Acts 17:11b NIV, we have not gone back to the Bible to verify the things we believe and practise.

Everything about Himself was there for them to discover if they had only taken the trouble to search. In fact, had they listened to Him with faith, they would have understood because He was the living Word right there with them for three years. John testified that “Jesus did many other things as well. If every one of them were written down, I suppose that even the whole world would not have enough room for all the books that would be written.” John 21:25 (NIV). That is quite a statement!

Firstly, Jesus gave one simple instruction to His disciples out of which flows everything else He taught and demonstrated. He said to them, and to us, “Remain in me” And yet, if one considers the variety of superstructures that have been built on Him, the picture of true discipleship has been horribly distorted. All the rituals and paraphernalia that have been piled on Him have buried Him and replaced Him with nothing but another man-made religion.

Where do robes, incense, chanting, processions, hierarchy, priesthood and laity, rituals and every other belief and practice added to the simplicity of His call, fit into His purpose for coming? Do these things help us to live in harmony together as brothers and sisters in the family of God so that we can be witnesses to Him in the world?

Jesus calls us into close fellowship with Him with no trappings and requirements other than to believe, love and obey Him. Out of that flows our fellowship with each other. “We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ.” 1 John 1:3 (NIV). Where does all this other stuff fit into that?

Secondly, we have built a world-wide prayer movement called “spiritual warfare” that in fact functions as though the death of Jesus were inadequate to deal with the devil. We are taught to “pull down”, “take authority over”, “break through”, “cast out”, “identify principalities”, “bind and loose” and even do “prayer walks” with no regard to the truth that Jesus accomplished the total defeat of Satan at the cross.

“When you were dead in your sins and in the uncircumcision of your sinful nature, God made you alive. He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the written code with its regulations which were against us and that stood opposed to us; He took it away, nailing it to the cross. And having disarmed the powers and authorities, He made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them by the cross.” Colossians 2:13-15 (NIV).

If we have doubts about the efficacy of Jesus’ death, then we must add all these other things to try to subdue the devil. There is no evidence in the book of Acts that the Early Church was taught to do any of these things. By sharing their lives and their resources with one another and preaching Jesus as Lord, they turned the world upside down and brought down powerful religions like Diana-worship and eventually even the worship of Caesar.

The Bible sounds a serious warning to those who add anything to the sufficiency of the person and work of Jesus. “But even if we, or an angel from heaven should preach a gospel other than the one we preached to you, let him be eternally condemned.” Galatians 1:8 (NIV).

How important it was for those disciples then, and for us today, to know that Jesus had to suffer, to die and to be raised from the dead so that we can be living witnesses of who He is. Our transformed lives show the world that Jesus, and not the devil, is Lord, and expose his deception.