EPHESIANS 4:11
"Now these are THE GIFTS OF CHRIST given to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers."
What would have happened if Christ had come to earth and risen to heaven and no one was left to record or tell or teach about it? What if God had not given us prophets to foretell about the coming of the Saviour? What if Christ had not commissioned His apostles to go into all the world and tell about the Good News, that Jesus Christ Saves? What if throughout mans history there had been no evangelists to lead crusades for the saving of souls? What would our churches be like without our pastors or Shepard's to lead the flock? Where would we be if there were no teachers to help us to understand what the Word says?
Talk about the gift that keeps on giving, Christ's gift to mankind of the apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers was better than any gift to mankind other than God giving His only begotten Son to Save the World. What a wonderful variety of gifts it was. He gave us apostles to be special messengers of His Word. He gave us prophets to be inspired preachers and expounders of His message. He gave us traveling missionaries that were preachers of the Gospel and evangelizers. He gave us Shepard's to tend His flock and to lead us to green pastures. He left those who could instruct us and teach us in His word and Wisdom.
When you ask what has Jesus done for me lately, you might think of this one truth for today. God provided an abundance of blessings that just keep going and giving. These gifts will last until He returns to us. The responsibility of those above is to equip God's people to do His work and build up the church. The have been commissioned by God to do the work of unifying the body with His faith and knowledge. No other commission can even remotely compete with the one given by Christ to His followers. No other book can compete with His word. He did it all for us and those are THE GIFTS OF CHRIST!
