Prof Zebulon No E39

C) The Church (Gifts of the Body – an overview)

The Lord has given gifts to His Body (the Church) to continue the work that He started to do when He was on the earth. God has designed a way to continue Jesus Christ’s work by bestowing spiritual gifts on each and every member of Christ’s Spiritual Body so that everyone has a specific function. All these gifts were perfected in Christ; He had them all and the Holy Spirit is the bestower of these gifts. This is confirmed in 1 Corinthians 12: 11 – “…and the selfsame Spirit dividing to every man severally as He will.” The Holy Spirit wants to minister to the Body through each believer when they exercise their gifts one to another. These gifts cannot be earned; they are grace gifts. The definition of a spiritual gift is “it is a Spirit-given ability which acts as a channel through which the Holy Spirit ministers to the Body”. All believers have Spirit-given gifts and they have nothing to do with spirituality; even carnal believers have gifts. There are believers who think that we are to tarry or wait for certain gifts; this is contrary to scripture as we just read in 1 Cor 12: 11 - “as He will”. While some members of the Body abuse the gifts, others neglect them; it’s either indifference on one hand and fanaticism on the other. Also, spiritual gifts are not natural physical abilities such as, speaking in public, music, singing or artistic ability. God may choose to use our natural abilities for His service and He may also choose not to use them. He may even give us gifts that have no connection to our natural abilities; the important thing is to minister them to one another, because when we use our gifts, the Body is built up. Let’s say that someone has the gift of preaching and uses this gift in the power of the Holy Spirit. The Body is built up in this area. Now, let’s say that someone else has the gift of wisdom. The one who has the gift of preaching profits from this believer in the area of wisdom and vice-versa. There are two kinds of gifts : 1) Permanent edifying gifts for the building-up of the Body and; 2) Temporary miraculous gifts for signs and wonders to confirm the Word. We will look closely at each spiritual gifts in other studies but for the moment, let us each examine ourselves honestly and see exactly what spiritual gift or gifts the Holy Spirit has given us. All believers have them, some have more than one. How do we find our spiritual gifts? 1) We look at the lists of gifts in the Bible - 1 Corinthians 12, Romans 12, and Ephesians 4; 2) We pray earnestly to ask God to show us which ones are ours. 3) We get involved in ministry and the Lord will place us exactly in the right spot; trust me, it works.

J) Doctrine (Heaven)

Heaven is the dwelling place of God : “Look down from Thy holy habitation, from heaven” (Deut 26 : 15a) . Of course, all the angels, the Old Testament Saints and all those who have died and had trusted Christ as their Saviour are there as well just waiting for us because heaven is “that blessed hope” (Titus 2 :13) of all true Christians. It will be our permanent resting place where “God shall wipe away their tears from their eyes and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain” (Rev 21 :4). What a place this must be. However in a certain way we, as believers, are already in heaven, here on earth; we are “as strangers and pilgrims” (1 Peter 2 :11) in passage only. The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 5 :1 that : “For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens”. Or, how about Philippians 3 :20 “for our conversation is in heaven”. So now you say, ok, great I’m saved; when I die what will heaven be like? Well, you don’t want to say what someone whose 7-year-old son had asked him that very question. The father answered, “Heaven will be like a never-ending church service”. To a seven year old that description obviously did not appeal to him; if anything, he got him turned off completely on heaven. But the question is legitimate: “What will we do in heaven?” The Bible does not say specifically that one guy will do this and the other guy will do that, but it does say that : “so shall we ever be with the Lord” (1 Thess 4 :17b) and Jesus “shall change our vile body that it may be fashioned to His glorious body” (Phil 3 :21) and God “will dwell with them (that’s us) and they shall be His people and God Himself shall be with them and be their God” (Rev 21 :3b) WOW!!! I don’t know about you but man, I’m anxious to get to heaven. Moses had to hide behind a rock (Exod 33 :20-23) because he could not look directly at God; we will be with Him, face to face for eternity. How long?? For eternity!!