Time to Energize the Saints
Ministers
who are seeking to keep the Holy Spirit in His restorative work in the church
must begin to stimulate the saints into their gifts and callings. We are called
not only to purify the church, but also to mature and equip the church for the
Day of the Lord. We are being challenged to recruit souls for God’s army – not to
prepare people for retirement but for an eternal heavenly vacation as ‘hallelujah
traveling workers’. Five-fold ministries are expressly commissioned by God to perfect, mature and equip the
saints, (Eph. 4.11-12):
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
Therefore, we must train them in the use of the gifts of the Holy Spirit,
our weapons of welfare. But it is regretful that, for centuries Christian
ministries have only had the saints clad with their Christian armor (Eph. 6:10-18).
But the armor is not just enough because it is mainly only for defennse
purposes, to protect and preserve.
The only offensive item in
the armor is the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. So the vocal
revelation and power gifts of the Spirit must be activated with the other
expressions of God’s powerful word for us to properly do spiritual warfare.
This is the time for the gifts to become a dynamic, integral part of the life
and ministry of every saint.
We are seriously convinced that
the Holy Spirit is implicitly saying that the churches and ministers who do not
work with Him to fulfill this commission from Christ will decline. If pastors
refuse to equip their saints in the gifts, then either they will loose their
grips on their members and be unproductive, or the people who desire the gifts
will be removed from their congregations and be driven to other pastors who
will do the will of God.
WARNING SHOT: All the
excuses given in the past for failing to activate the saints into the gifts of
the Holy Spirit will not be tenable to Christ. He is determined to bring all
members in His Body into their encompassing ministry because “the times of this
ignorance God winked at; but now commandeth all men every where to repent” (Acts
17:30).