Kingdom's Keys Fellowship
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Lent 23 Gifts of Administration Part 3
Lent 23 Gifts of Administration Part 3
When you sit down to work out a puzzle you find a box full of pieces cut in different ways, shapes and colors that take time to fit together. You are usually given a picture of the finished product. You try and put it all together by matching lines, colors and shapes. Apply the same idea to a congregation of people. Everyone has a unique personality, different ideas, skills and behaviors. If they are believers they have different spiritual gifts. How do we fit them together?
“Every aspect of the local Body, its people and their gifts need to be organized, arranged and directed. The question for us is, “How is this done?” That was the question we closed with in the Lent 22 column. The answer is not complicated unless you make it so. Scripture is our manual and its administrative principles are right there for all to see. What does it tell us?
There are three spiritual administrators to begin with, the Father who establishes His will, the Son who manages the Father’s will and the Spirit who empowers its action. According to Matt.28:18 the Father authorized the Son to administer, manage, direct His will. The Spirit in turn is the One who carries it out by motivating and inspiring its action (John 16:14-15). The Father willed the universe, the Son was the One who managed its creation and the Spirit put its pieces together. It was the architect Father, the contractor Son and the Holy Spirit labor force; perfectly unified minds, perfectly managed, perfectly acted out.
If we are created in the image of God it follows that the Body of Christ would be formed in the same way. That old expression, ‘Letting God be God,’ is the key here. When the Father said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased. Listen to Him!” it was His intent to let Jesus be THE administrator of His Body, the many congregations of people who believe and follow Him.
Referring to Jesus’ choice to call fishermen, in boats with nets, as disciples, these congregations are the many boats that make up His fleet. They are manned by believers to whom He has given the nets of spiritual gifts. These are prepared and cast at His direction. We have to be very clear about this. HE is the administrator and the Holy Spirit is the distributor and substance of the gifts that make up the nets.
There is no one human leader or administrator. These are gifts He provides and directs through a structure of overseers, elders and deacons (Php.1:1, 1Tim.5:17) who follow the Scriptural organizing principles Jesus establishes through the Holy Spirit. These are offices to be occupied by gifted people who see themselves as humble servants of the Body not its authority figures. The Lord is the Administrator and He is directly involved through His personal relationship with every believer. The structure and the gifts that energize it, work because He is always present everywhere working through His Spirit.
The pastor-teacher, pastors (lay and ordained), teachers, prophets, and all the gifted, work in a shared atmosphere Scripture calls the fruit of the Spirit (Gal.5:22-23). It is the day-to-day, minute-by-minute, every-next-moment choice and decision that is submitted to and through the gifted Body that builds, trains and maintains the Body. Policy, mission and ministry take shape when this approach of spiritual gifts spreads through a Body. It is when leaders and pastors trust the Lord working through gifts and trust the gifted in the Body for advice and guidance, this is when the Body functions as Jesus’ Body. Let me repeat that principle. When elected, appointed or natural leaders trust every gifted believer in the Body for counsel and advice, the Body functions in harmony, love, excitement and expectation. That is what the Lord desires for us. It is then He is seen, experienced, followed and worshiped as the Lord by the believers who humbly yield to Him and one another.
Everyone in the Body has been given spiritual gifts. No one is left out. No, not one.
So what is our response to be? Getting the gifts across takes administration not only by a gifted administrator but also by the one gifted. “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms (1Pet.4:10).”
How to do that, next….stay tuned……..
When you sit down to work out a puzzle you find a box full of pieces cut in different ways, shapes and colors that take time to fit together. You are usually given a picture of the finished product. You try and put it all together by matching lines, colors and shapes. Apply the same idea to a congregation of people. Everyone has a unique personality, different ideas, skills and behaviors. If they are believers they have different spiritual gifts. How do we fit them together?
“Every aspect of the local Body, its people and their gifts need to be organized, arranged and directed. The question for us is, “How is this done?” That was the question we closed with in the Lent 22 column. The answer is not complicated unless you make it so. Scripture is our manual and its administrative principles are right there for all to see. What does it tell us?
There are three spiritual administrators to begin with, the Father who establishes His will, the Son who manages the Father’s will and the Spirit who empowers its action. According to Matt.28:18 the Father authorized the Son to administer, manage, direct His will. The Spirit in turn is the One who carries it out by motivating and inspiring its action (John 16:14-15). The Father willed the universe, the Son was the One who managed its creation and the Spirit put its pieces together. It was the architect Father, the contractor Son and the Holy Spirit labor force; perfectly unified minds, perfectly managed, perfectly acted out.
If we are created in the image of God it follows that the Body of Christ would be formed in the same way. That old expression, ‘Letting God be God,’ is the key here. When the Father said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased. Listen to Him!” it was His intent to let Jesus be THE administrator of His Body, the many congregations of people who believe and follow Him.
Referring to Jesus’ choice to call fishermen, in boats with nets, as disciples, these congregations are the many boats that make up His fleet. They are manned by believers to whom He has given the nets of spiritual gifts. These are prepared and cast at His direction. We have to be very clear about this. HE is the administrator and the Holy Spirit is the distributor and substance of the gifts that make up the nets.
There is no one human leader or administrator. These are gifts He provides and directs through a structure of overseers, elders and deacons (Php.1:1, 1Tim.5:17) who follow the Scriptural organizing principles Jesus establishes through the Holy Spirit. These are offices to be occupied by gifted people who see themselves as humble servants of the Body not its authority figures. The Lord is the Administrator and He is directly involved through His personal relationship with every believer. The structure and the gifts that energize it, work because He is always present everywhere working through His Spirit.
The pastor-teacher, pastors (lay and ordained), teachers, prophets, and all the gifted, work in a shared atmosphere Scripture calls the fruit of the Spirit (Gal.5:22-23). It is the day-to-day, minute-by-minute, every-next-moment choice and decision that is submitted to and through the gifted Body that builds, trains and maintains the Body. Policy, mission and ministry take shape when this approach of spiritual gifts spreads through a Body. It is when leaders and pastors trust the Lord working through gifts and trust the gifted in the Body for advice and guidance, this is when the Body functions as Jesus’ Body. Let me repeat that principle. When elected, appointed or natural leaders trust every gifted believer in the Body for counsel and advice, the Body functions in harmony, love, excitement and expectation. That is what the Lord desires for us. It is then He is seen, experienced, followed and worshiped as the Lord by the believers who humbly yield to Him and one another.
Everyone in the Body has been given spiritual gifts. No one is left out. No, not one.
So what is our response to be? Getting the gifts across takes administration not only by a gifted administrator but also by the one gifted. “Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms (1Pet.4:10).”
How to do that, next….stay tuned……..
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