Journal Entry ~ 05/25/18

11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,
12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, - Ephesians 4:11-13

We are given spiritual gifts from Christ, but we are also given leaders whose job is to equip us, or to repair what's broken and supply what's lacking in the believers. As they do this, our gifts change and grow. Our faith and our knowledge should be growing as a result of the teaching we’ve encountered, and we should continually be challenged to the next level. As God sends leaders into our lives to help fix what is broken, we grow in different ways and different gifts begin to strengthen. 

But what is it all of this for?  We see the answer in the next phrase - for the building up of the body of Christ. We are equipped for a purpose - not just so that we feel better about ourselves or so that we become better people. No, we're equipped for a very specific reason - to build up the body of Christ. That's the purpose of all this - the giving of gifts and the growing of our faith - it’s all to build up the body of Christ. 

So, how are you using your gifts to build up the body of Christ? It's more than just us as individuals, it's us as a body of Christ. This message from Paul should help us to feel encouraged when we realize the church is a broken place full of broken people. We are all a work in progress, we are all to be working toward the building up the body of Christ. That's it...that's our purpose and our goal. All the work we do throughout the week for any other purpose should be taking second priority to this one purpose....or perhaps we need to bring this first priority into whatever it is we're doing during the week, and lay down what we think is our priority.


Press on ~ you are loved 💗

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