Monday, June 10, 2019
Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers. Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church, the body of Christ. 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. Ephesians 4:11-13
When God
puts a gift into your hand you’re supposed to use it. That was the example God created as He formed
the New Testament era church. God placed
gifts of apostle, evangelism, and pastor/teacher in the lives of individuals
like Paul, Peter, James, John, Timothy, Priscilla and Aquila (to name a
few). These men and women did not place
these gifts on a shelf to be admired; they staked their lives on using these
precious blessings to build-up God’s Kingdom church.
That example,
and the process (God giving a gift, God’s children using that gift, and Jesus,
by His Spirit maturing and multiplying everything about the church) has not
changed since the birth of the church at Pentecost two thousand years ago.
Something
else has not changed about that process and the Kingdom; some people use their
gift as a precious tool to build, while others lay it on a shelf, because they
either don’t have the heart to do the work, or they’re afraid they’ll mess-up
the work, so they never begin. After
all, there is something intimidating about knowing you’re handling the holy, knowing
God is watching.
I was once
given a gift of a camera. It was a brand
new 7-mega pixel gem. I was on my way to
Africa to participate in a mission project, and these dear friends wanted to
undergird what I was doing. At the time
I’d just turned 60 and had never been involved in hands-on missions on foreign
soil before. I was nervous about the trip,
and (truth be told) had thoughts of pulling out. The gift was meant to encourage me (and it
did that immeasurably), but the gift also strengthened and challenged me to throw
myself into the work. After all, if
human friends would believe in me (hey, that camera was expensive, and they
also placed money in my hands to bless and extend ministry), well, I felt like
I was in a corner to do my very best to follow God’s leading.
I couldn’t
record with that camera the smells, heat, and the stark poverty I encountered
in southern Africa on that trip, but the depth of how God’s Spirit is working
on that continent came alive in me as I did my best to labor, and keep a visual
record of the work with that camera. The
experience made deep memories, and the pictures I took have served as monuments
ever since to constantly remind me of what Kingdom construction really looks like.
So, you
might be asking, what does that have to do with me…I’m not a prophet, pastor, or
missionary…no apostle here…I’m an average guy who goes to church and is a substitute
teacher for the third grade Sunday School class. But that’s just the point…who were
Peter, James, and John, anyway? They
were fishermen scratching-out a living with a leaky boat and old nets in need
of repair. They had families and responsibilities;
life was no easier for them than for any human child God ever created. The difference in their lives, and in the
construction of God’s Kingdom here on earth, was when they began to realize God
had spoken gifts of ministry into their lives, that trust built-up their faith,
and caused them to understand that was the very mission they were commissioned to
extend…they were gifted to build up people, and so build the church.
For You Today
It’s an old
saying, but how could I not say it…God uses ordinary people to accomplish
extraordinary things. And to borrow a
little MasterCard© thinking and shape it into the real Master’s Building
code: What’s in your gift wallet? And more importantly, How will you use your gifts
today?
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[1] Title Image: Pixabay.com
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The New Living Translation©
Unless otherwise noted, all Scripture quotations are from The New Living Translation©
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