Here is an excert from my book Your Pastor Is Your Spiritual Blessing Is He or She The Pastor or Your Pastor? “But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. Wherefore he saith, When he ascended up on high, he led captivity captive, and gave gifts unto men. And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ;” Ephesians 4:7,8,11,12 Let’s start out by asking a simple question. Do you consider your Pastor to be a person that your church hired? Do you consider your Pastor as an employee of your church? One evening a gentleman who was visiting one of the church’s Deacons stopped in my office and asked if he could talk to me. I noticed that he was visibly upset. As the conversation progressed, it did not take long for me to figure out why he was upset. He had become angry concerning a financial choice the Pastor made regarding his church. The conversation, as it progressed reveled that he was upset that his Tithes and Offerings were being used to pay the Pastor’s salary and he felt that they should not. At this point of our conversation I stated : “Sir, you are speaking as though your Pastor is your employee or something and that you and the rest the church is his employer! That’s your first big mistake right there! I went on to tell him, I believe that it was God Who sent that man to Pastor His people. Notice I said that GOD SENT HIM. You people did not HIRE him. The only thing you folks did was to vote to receive what God sent to help and bless you in life. So get your thinking straight first! Your Pastor is not an employee of the church. You would be amazed at how many people in the church have this same view of the Pastor of their church. They see him / her as an employee hired by the church to do all the things they expect a Pastor to do. Such a view point is ABSOLUTELY NON-SCRIPTURAL! Individuals within the church who promote such a view of the Pastor are usually the very ones who desire to control the finances and the Pastor of the church. Their attitude is, You just preach and teach Well take care of the business and money of the church. THATS NOT BIBLICAL! The Bible says that the Pastor (Sheppard) of the church is to take the oversight of the church, not a Board of Deacons or a Board of Elders. (l Peter 5.2) I have heard of churches that have held the Pastors salary hostage until he or she agreed with what the Board wanted to do! Thats demonic and God will not bless a church or the people who practice that form of witchcraft, because that is exactly what it is: WITCHCRAFT! It is imperative that each individual member of the congregation as a whole, view their Pastor in the light of the Word of God. Viewing your Pastor from a scriptural perspective will go a long way towards helping the people of the church to foster a good and healthy relationship with the Pastor. Since we now know that the Pastor is not an employee of the church, we need to find out exactly who and what is he. The Pastor Is Christ Gift To The Church A look at vs. 8 reveals that the Risen Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, the Supreme Head of the Church, ascended up on high to sit down at the Right Hand of the Throne of God when His work of Redemption was completed. From this, His exalted and enthroned position He, gave gifts unto men. In James 1:17 the scriptures tell us that, Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above... These Gifts that Christ gave then are for our good and they are perfect in the sense that they are exactly what we need. Understand that these gifts of Christ are not perfect in the sense that they are flawless and in¬capable of mistakes. I am using the word perfectly only in the sense that they are precisely what is needed to achieve a desired end. One Christmas one of my members purchased me one of those electronic bibles as a gift. I was excited about the gift and kissed her and said, this is a perfect gift for me. Now I did not mean that the gift itself was flawless, but that the gift was exactly what I needed to help me do my job better. In the same sense Christ gave these gifts to the church and these the gifts He gave are definitely for our good and perfect, in the sense that these gifts are exactly what we need to achieve the Lords objective. Therefore we must see what these good and perfect gifts of Christ are according to the scriptures. He is the one who gave these gifts to the church: the Apostles, the Prophets, the Evangelists, the Pastors and Teachers.(vs.11) The gifts Paul is speaking of are the men/women of the Gospel who are called to stand and operate in one or more of the FIVEFOLD MINISTRY OFFICE GIFTS OF CHRIST. The gifts are the Apostles, Prophets, Evangelists, Pastors and Teachers. Notice that included in the list of the gifts of Christ is THE PASTOR. According to the Bible your Pastor is one gift of Christ given to the church and not an employee of the church house. These gifts are good and perfect for us to help us achieve Christs purpose. A look at vs. 12 reveals to us the intent purpose of the Risen Lord for giving the church these gifts. Their responsibility is to equip Gods people to do His work and build up the church, the body of Christ. Notice what the Bible did not say your Pastors assignment is. The Bible did not say that it is the Pastors responsibility to do the work of building up the Body of Christ. Some in the church think that it is the Pastors job to do all the work of building up and adding people to the church. But look again my friend! It is your Pastors job, according to the Bible, to equip you so that you can do the work of the ministry, which is building up the Body of Christ. He or She is suppose to do the training so that you can do the work! SHEEP ARE TO BEGET OTHER SHEEP! You will never see a shepherd birthing sheep, but you will see other sheep reproducing and birthing other sheep. (So ask yourself this question: who was the last person I won to the Lord? And when was the last time I added to the number of this sheepfold?) The Pastor is a gift given to each local church by the Lord Jesus Christ. A God-sent Pastor is given to you for your good. If you will learn how to relate properly to him or her and receive him or her, God will be able to impart good and Godly blessings into your life. The Holy Spirit through Paul also said, But unto every one of us is given grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ.(vs_7) God has given to each one of us His grace, His unmerited favors and blessings; But notice this eye opening revelation. He has given us, grace according to the measure of the gift of Christ. To the extent to which you receive and honor the gift of Christ has a direct bearing on the measure or amount of grace that will be released in your life. God will cause supernatural favour and blessings to come into your life based on how you receive, respond to and treat His gifts to you. “One day Elisha went to the town of Shunem. A wealthy woman lived there, and she invited him to eat some food. From then on, whenever he passed that way, he would stop there to eat. She said to her husband, I am sure this man who stops in from time to time is a holy man of God. Lets make a little room for him on the roof and furnish it with a bed, a table, a chair, and a lamp. Then he will have palace to stay whenever he comes by. Later Elisha asked Gehazi, What do you think we can do for her He suggested, She doesnt have a son, and her husband is an old man.call her back again, Elisha told him. When the woman returned, Elisha said to her as she stood in the doorway, Next year at about this time you will be holding a son in your arms! No, my lord! she protested. Please dont lie to me like that, Oman of God. But sure enough, the woman soon became pregnant. And at that time the following year she had a son, just as Elisha had said.” 2 Kings 4:8-10,14-17 We are not going to dig into the details of the text, but let’s look at this spiritual principal. How many of you would agree that this woman of Shumen definitely had supernatural favour and blessing released into her life by the Lord? No doubt about it! The woman herself wasnt past child bearing years, but her husband was! But God supernaturally quickened the dead and caused her husband to be virile again! What caused God to release such a measure of His grace and favour into this couple of Shumen’s life? It was according to how they treated and received Gods Prophet. How they treated and received Gods ministry gift had everything to do with the measure of grace released into their lives. This is the very thought Paul is conveying to Christians in vs.7 of Ephesians 4. How you receive and treat your gift of your Pastor has a great deal to do with you having more of Gods favour and blessings released into your own life.
Posted on: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 17:23:48 +0000
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