Ephesians 4 | Sonlight Devotional

Posts Tagged ‘Ephesians 4’

Believe in the Five-Fold Ministry

Posted in Body of Christ, tagged Blood of Jesus, Ephesians 4, Five-Fold Ministry on February 22, 2022| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Ephesians 4:11-13

When I think of God, I cannot think of Him as a man, as a person. All I can think of is a BIG being, filling the whole space, and filling us. But I can think of Jesus as a man. Do you see how God is good for us? He gave us Someone Whom we can relate to. Now, if Jesus is a person, if Jesus is a man, you must approach Him as a person. I’ll never forget what happened when I prayed the first time, asked Jesus to come into my life and felt the quickening. That means that His blood had touched me; it touched my mind and touched my consciousness. Before that, I was not conscious of God, but now I am conscious of His presence.

The next thing that happened to me was that I said, “Jesus, why don’t You come and talk to me?” Now, I am not telling you to say that, because the devil might come and talk to you and you could believe that it was Jesus. That is, however, not supposed to be. The devil is not supposed to be able to talk to you and you believe it is Jesus. Do you know why? The Christ in you will not be happy. Amen. But the relationship between you and Jesus Christ must be such that you know that Jesus is a man, you speak to Him as a resurrected man, and you deal with Him and expect Him to respond to you as a man would respond to you. What kind of doctrine is that? That you would expect Jesus to respond to you as a man would respond to you?

You see, we have made a step backward. Let me tell you why. We were going upward to believe that God has a five-fold ministry in the heavenlies, in the spirit. Jesus Christ is in the five-fold ministry or the left hand, in the natural, among us. But what I have noticed is that we have started not to believe in the five-fold ministry any more. We have started to believe in our abilities to do.

Now, if you have a pastor in your midst, immediately you would have rejected the five-fold ministry, because the five-fold ministry doesn’t have any pastor in it. Those who occupy the place of the shepherd would be too busy shepherding to be able to be fooling around and doing anything else. There is a problem that I see and I don’t know if it is as if you have forgotten, or if you want to be like another church or something, but I don’t see the function of the five-fold ministry. I don’t see the function of the prophet in your midst. As a matter of fact, if the prophet should function, you probably wouldn’t believe it. I don’t see the function of the evangelist. I don’t see anybody evangelizing anything. If the evangelists had the spirit of the evangelist, they would be praying and God would be sending people into your fellowships. Amen. “But why should I leave my church over there with my pastor and come to your gathering with the same function?”

I don’t see the function of the five-fold ministry. You don’t function in the five-fold ministry anymore. I don’t know if you understand what I am talking about. Every ministry of these five-fold has branches in the church among the people. In other words, Christ is working in you. Amen. As Christ is working in you and among you, He will give one a vision; He will give another a dream; He will give somebody something to uplift the brethren. But if I dream that you become a dog and start barking and bite up everybody in the place, what profit is that to everybody? God is telling us to run for our lives, the dog is coming. Don’t you understand? The ministration of the Spirit is to profit withal. If the Spirit of the prophet is in you, you will find that as you begin to function, there will be many more that will be functioning and together it will bring life and not death.

(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, December 2007, pg. 9-10)

Thought for today: Let us believe in the five-fold ministry that God has in the Earth and not in our abilities to do.

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“For the Work of the Ministry…”

Posted in Body of Christ, tagged Apostles, Body of Christ, Ephesians 4, Modern Babylon on February 9, 2022| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Ephesians 4:11-16

Let us look at Ephesians 4:12 today. It says, For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. This means that the ministry that God sends to you will make you work for God. In other words, what you are receiving from God is supposed to help you to begin to minister to others. But you are not perfect. It says, Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Ephesians 4:13). Now, what this is saying is that we are not all perfect; we all don’t believe the same thing – 1, 2, 3, and going down, but that when we keep fellowshipping together, we will all come to the truth.

14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; 15 But speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: 16 From whom the whole body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth, according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love. If you are walking in the Body of Christ, you will begin to grow in love. One sign that tells you that you are really in the Body of Christ is if you are growing in love.

God is saying that the only place you should be at this time is in the Body of Christ. The long bar holding the boards in the Tabernacle of Moses does not represent a person. It represents an apostolic ministry. Do you understand? In other words, God has appointed certain people to teach His people and they are called apostles – those who are trained by God and sent. Another bar represents the prophet ministry. We have the prophet ministry in certain people that have developed in this ministry, but the ministry of the prophet is in you. That is why you have dreams and visions, and you must not interpret your own dreams or visions. But God is placing dreams and visions in the whole Body, so that the Body might be led by the Spirit of God. Now, if you understand that, I will go to the other bars.

There is the evangelist. It is a spirit that is not only in certain individuals, but it is in all of you. There is a desire in you to tell somebody else; there is something in you that is saying, “I must tell somebody else.” That is the spirit of the evangelist. But suppose that spirit was in you and you were a Roman Catholic? You would be misleading people. Do you understand what I am saying? In other words, when I talk about the Catholic system, I am not just talking about the Roman Catholic Church. All the daughters of Rome have been doing worse than Rome. What God is saying to us today is, “Come out from among them” (2 Corinthians 6:17). Some of us have come out of the churches, but we have the churches in us. Some of the evangelists on the television are preaching that the only place to go is back to Rome. Any spirit or any person that is leading people back to Rome is not of God, it is a spirit of the devil. The Bible tells me, “Come out from among them,” and it says, “Flee from Babylon” (Isaiah 48:20). I tell you something, if at this time you don’t flee from that spirit of denominationalism, the plague of division is going to take you. God says that if you don’t flee, you will suffer the consequences that they are going to suffer.

(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, September 17, 2006, pg. 6-7)

Thought for today: The ministry that God sends to you will make you work for God. In other words, what you are receiving from God is supposed to help you to begin to minister to others.

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What Apostolic Teaching Are You Following?

Posted in Body of Christ, tagged Apostolic Teaching, Body of Christ, Ephesians 4, Exodus 26, Outer Court, Tabernacle of Moses on February 7, 2022| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Ephesians 4:11-13

God has put a picture in the Bible of the Body of Christ into the Tabernacle of Moses. Do you know that the Outer Court church is not the Body of Christ? Let me describe a picture to you of the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies as it is recorded in Exodus 26. The structure is made out of twenty boards. The boards on the corner of the end are double. There is one bar going right through the whole side. The bar is held by rings, golden rings. The boards are made of wood and gold. The gold covers the wood, so that the wood does not show at all. Wood means humanity and gold means divinity. So you see, it is God’s idea that our humanity should be covered by His divinity so that we would not have a human organization, but a divine organization. Human beings cannot organize a divine organization, so we have to be organized by God.

Let us read what God says about the five bars. All the bars are held by three golden rings through each board. It is the boards that hold the bars, and the bars keep the boards. These five bars represent five ministries. The long one is the apostles, and the shorter ones represent prophets, evangelists, shepherds and teachers. We are not talking about pastors, because the word pastor is Latin. In Latin, it means that you can keep cows, you can keep hogs, you can keep goats, or you can keep sheep. But in the Greek rendition of the word, you can only keep sheep as a shepherd. So, Jesus said, “I am the good Shepherd” (John 10:11).

Let us look at Ephesians 4:11-12, And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, shepherds and teachers; 12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ. It said the ministry is given for the perfecting of the saints. God is saying that He has set a ministry in the world to perfect the saints. Now, if you give the saints wrong doctrines and dogmas that are made by man, instead of perfecting them, it will kill them. So, it depends upon what apostolic teaching you are following – that is what decides whether you are in the Body of Christ or not.

Let us take some of the teachings that have turned away from God. What about communion? When you bless the bread, does it become meat? When you bless the wine, does it become the Blood of Jesus Christ? The answer is NO. So, if you have a doctrine that when a person takes the bread and the wine, it makes him holy, it is a false doctrine. Therefore, the true apostles of God must teach the truth to bring people away from these lying doctrines. Let us consider the doctrine of rapture. If you teach the people that they are going to be raptured from the world and taken away to another place, it is a false teaching. The people need to know that they are going to have to overcome here on earth and don’t feel that they are going to escape the tribulation while all the other people have to go through it. We saw the Chinese church destroyed because they believed they were going to fly away, and Jesus didn’t come and take them away out of their tribulation. The people of God must understand that God wants us to overcome. Therefore, the church must go through the tribulation. Also, the idea that only the ministry is hearing from God and that you only have to listen to what the ministries say, and not hear from God for yourself is indeed a wrong doctrine. There are many, many other doctrines that we would need to go into, but God promises us that He would bring the truth to us in the end time.

(Excerpt from Keeping in Touch, September 17, 2006, pg. 5-6)

Thought for today: Let us be careful what teaching we are following as it determines whether we are a part of the Body of Christ or not.

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“For Christ’s Sake, Come Alive!”

Posted in Body of Christ, tagged Body of Christ, Ephesians 4, Evangelizing, Feed God's Flock, God's Flock on October 6, 2021| Leave a Comment »

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Scripture reading: Acts 1:8

God is saying to us that His flock is wandering up on the mountain like sheep without a shepherd, yet there is a body of Christ in our midst. I am saying to you, body of Christ, “For Christ’s sake, come alive! Begin to realize your responsibility in a world that needs you badly.”

Do you see what I mean? We have lost the spirit of evangelizing. Do you ever feel like an angel of God at your workplace? Or dealing with people out on the street? This is what God is saying: ev-angel; ev-angel is angel. You see, you are sent of God. As the body of Christ you are sent of God in the world to do a job. ARE YOU DOING IT? You have to start doing it in your midst, then you start doing it outside there. Jesus said, But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me both in Jerusalem, and in Judaea, and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth (Acts 1:8).

Let us look at Ephesians 4 and we go back to that very, very hackneyed [often repeated] verse which has been so used in my Bible that the leaf comes out. Beginning at verse 11, “And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, ~~pastors~~ shepherds, and teachers; 12 For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” The work of the ministry is not going to be done by the apostles, prophets, evangelists, shepherds, and teachers. But it is the saints that are going to do the work of the ministry. It is the church that must function. You are a living body. You must walk and talk and function in the world and bring forth fruit and you need to bring forth fruit after your own kind.

Do you realize that you are not doing the work that you could be doing among the kids in your area? Do you know what you could be doing? You could have the brethren picking up kids all over and teaching them about Jesus. Sometimes parents are too happy to get rid of their kids for a couple of hours.

I know a brother that went as far as building a swimming pool and having lifeguards. He got one of those old city busses and fixed it up. He began to pick up the kids on the bus routes all over and bring them in. When he brought in one load of kids, he didn’t give them the fun first. He gave them the songs and the Sunday school lesson and they played music and sang and so and so. When they were through, he put some in the pool and some on the swings in his back yard and they had a good time. Mothers were happy to get rid of them for three hours. Then, he was gone for another group of children and by the time he came in with the other group, the first group was ready to go home and home they went.

What is wrong with us? What is wrong with us? Don’t you see that the time is late and we need to get hold of the people? Let God work in your midst. Volunteer, get some of the people out there, those that don’t belong to us to volunteer to come and help. The next thing that happens is that they get saved too. Do you see what I mean?

We need an outreach of God because He says, “FEED THE FLOCK OF GOD.”

(Excerpt from The Omega Message, December 2011, pg. 23-25)

Thought for today: I am saying to you, body of Christ, “For Christ’s sake, come alive! Begin to realize your responsibility in a world that needs you badly.”

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