GIFTS AND MINISTRIES (Part IV)

By Odon Bulamba (Friday 29th September 2000)


9. GOD’S PURPOSE IN GIVING MINISTRIES

Why has God prepared the ministries?

To fulfill His spiritual plan. They are useful to show His works, useful in human being’s lives, and useful to build up the body of Christ so that all the children in Christ can grow into adulthood. There are no parents that will give birth to a child and wish their death, instead every parent who gives birth to a child wishes that child to live forever. So God who also gave us life needs to see us grow.

We should have talked about 1 Corinthians 12 before talking about the spiritual gifts, but we see that all these gifts are branches coming from the ministries of the Lord.

Ephesians 4: 10-13
He that descended is the same also that ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)
11 And he gave some to be apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers;
12 for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ:
till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ:

Amen! God’s goal is for us to be adults, to reach the fullness of Christ. This text gives us the 5 ministries and we realise that in man’s life the number 5 has a great meaning.

When God created the world, He made 5 continents, which has a meaning, as well as the different races on these continents. The race in Europe is not the race in America, the race in Africa is not the same as in Oceania and the Asian race is different from them all. What does that mean? God wanted to teach us spiritual lessons through the natural things, through what our eyes can see so that we might understand the great works of God. Every one of us has a head, and we all have a nose, a mouth, ears and a brain.


THE HEAD
a. The mouth
What is your mouth useful for? To speak. The mouth is to speak and this represents the ministry of evangelism: men must go and spread the good news everywhere in the world.

b. The eyes
What are the eyes useful for? To see. The church of God also needs to see and the eyes represent the ministry of prophecy. The prophet must see what is going on.

c. The nose
The nose is useful to breathe, no matter its shape, small or big, the nose allows us to breathe. We see that thanks to our nose we can have life, because if the nose doesn’t work, we can’t breathe and we might die. It is through the source of the Word of God that we have life, and it’s the biblical teaching that gives life to the spirit of man.

d. The ears
The ears are to listen. This is the ministry of pastor.

e. The brain
Above them all, there is the brain to control the whole thing. What is it?
Jesus said He is the head of the church. The rest of the body depends on the head. If you are mentally depressed, for example, the whole body will suffer, or if your eyes can’t see, the whole body suffers from being in darkness, or if your ears can’t hear, the whole body and your feet will never know the rhythm of the music, and if you are mute, you will never talk.


10. PRETENDING TO USE A GIFT

There was a mute singer who tried to tell people about his dream: people wanted to listen to his story but there was no sound to listen to. This is compared to you or me when we don’t have the gift of giving the Word and we stand in front of a crowd to preach: everybody will wander what you wanted to say. They will not understand. So if this is not your work, leave it.

What would you think of a blind telling you about colours?
When I was a child I would joke with blinds,
- What do you see here?
- I can see a hand. says the blind.

Was it true or not? It was wrong. He says, ‘I can see a hand’ but it was wrong. And many prophets are liars today. They don’t have spiritual eyes and after observing something,
- I didn’t like the way Peter left the house this morning. I think Peter did something wrong.
And when you meet someone,
- Oh you know… God revealed to me that Peter did this.

Be extremely careful with pretending to use a gift of God: you touch God’s heart and God is against us involving Him in dirty things. The Bible tells us never to take God’s name in vain, but Christians today do it. Some people don’t have spiritual ears and say, ‘I was with Hayley and she said this and that.’ But how could you hear Hayley since you have no ears?

So if we want to work for God, He will open our spiritual eyes, ears… everything so that we can really work for Him. Remember one thing: let us submit to His will. Jesus declared He is the tree of life and if you observe a tree, you see 5 parts: roots, leaves, fruit, branches, and trunk. This is to teach us something about the church: each part of the tree has a meaning, a specific role and this will never change but many try to hide under a denomination so that people will see you only on the surface when the Spirit of God doesn’t enlighten us.


11. WE HAVE A GREAT RESPONSIBILITY BEFORE GOD

So let us consider what our real work is and what our responsibilities before God are. Every one of us has a responsibility in everything they do and if we fail we will be punished more than other people on this earth would have. We are servants of God and we must remember that our abilities are greater than regular servants’. Regular Christians can’t find how to serve God, they just pray and do what they can but you have a gift and this gift must work and the celestial will demands from you to fulfill the mission you have been given. Woe to those who leave the battle field! Woe to those who will flee during the battle.

1 Corinthians 12: 2-7
Ye know that when ye were Gentiles ye were led away unto those dumb idols, howsoever ye might led.
3 Wherefore I make known unto you, that no man speaking in the Spirit of God saith, Jesus is anathema; and no man can say, Jesus is Lord, but in the Holy Spirit.
4 Now there are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit.
5 And there are diversities of ministrations, and the same Lord.
6 And there are diversities of workings, but the same God, who worketh all things in all.
7 But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit to profit withal.

God says that if we are prepared for His work we must understand that there are different gifts but one Spirit working in all of them. If you have the gift of singing and don’t use it but ask God to give you the gift of healing instead, God will tell you:
- What I have given you to produce fruit has not produced anything. So if you have another gift, what will you do with it? You should have sung for God’s work so that people could have heard you and be touched, but you didn’t make an effort to work on your gift.

It is like someone physically disabled and dreaming of being a soccer star with legs, when not all of those who have legs are soccer players. So let us acknowledge what we have and how we can use it, and do not envy what others have. Do you know that envy is a sin? If I envy what is in Oscar because I don’t have it, it makes me sin and if I don’t stop that I will be jealous of Oscar and I will add more sin.

Let’s understand there are different gifts of the Spirit, and we must exploit first what God has given us before asking for a second gift.

There are many ways to serve God: if God called you to be a minister in the X department, stay there, know the limits of your work and don’t wander around other ministries. Control what belongs to you. Unfortunately, most people control other people’s life better than theirs. Let us be careful with God’s work, and control what is in our spirits which is a precious treasure given by God.