The young apostle in Germany, whom I told about in my first posting, spoke at length with my husband. I was only listening and thinking to myself. Was he smaller than the others? Was he immature or not an apostle of God at all…? Neither of these.
Apostles are a gift to the Church from its Head and Lord. They are part of the five gifts of ministry which primary purpose is – to train the whole Body of Christ till they bring it to the fullness and the measure of Christ, to a state of no confusion, but of firmness and commitment.
This is exactly what was troubling the young apostle – that there’s no commitment in the students’ campus church where he started to pastor. His people came and went... including me. Was this wrong?
To answer this question, we have to give a definition first to the calling of each gift – of the place and the people to whom he was sent. Without such definition some things will settle in the hearts of the five-fold gifts – human grief, discouragement and, probably,… backsliding from the calling at a later stage.
The problem of this young apostle was that it was not defined to him what the congregation he pastors is. In this case – a students’ church – people that had already given their hearts to God in their homelands and who came here to worship and be a part of the Body. This in itself is a transient congregation. The commitment here is only to God, but not to the leadership. The leaders of a congregation like this are such who only water, only sowers or only reapers.
36 And he who reaps receives wages, and gathers fruit for eternal life, that both he who sows and he who reaps may rejoice together.
37 For in this the saying is true: ‘One sows and another reaps.’
38 I sent you to reap that for which you have not labored; others have labored, and you have entered into their labors.” John 4:36-38 (NKJV)
But the gift of the apostle cries out. It cries out for building up of the church, for commitment. This is the way it is because the gift cries with the power of the blood. The blood is life. The blood that Jesus, God’s Anointed One, shed on the Cross was to give us life in fullness. Jesus spent three days in Hell. To me this seems worse than the Cross. On the Cross He still spoke with the Father. In Hell – He preached and spoke alone to those that had waited their judgment since the time of Noah. And then He led captive a host of captives and He gave gifts to men. And, after he went below every other place and ascended at the right hand of the Father, then He sent His Spirit and gave gifts to men. Gifts paid for with blood and martyrdom.
That is why now each gift of the five-fold leadership cries out – with the power of life. And it does not matter how long this brother or sister have been in the faith – their gift is crying out: “Use me as intended, use me.”
That is why apostles, prophets, evangelizers, pastors and teachers, if they are truly such, they begin to build up little by little regardless of whether they’ve received someone’s permission or not. They build according to the measure of grace and faith. They know they serve the Lord of life, that they are accountable first before Him. However… they cannot do it alone. That’s why there are five different gifts and all are called to build TOGETHER.
The reason this young apostle used to get hurt so easily was that there was no other gift with him to define to him the problem. The apostle was called to build-up churches but where was the prophet to give definition, where was the teacher to give teaching…?
If he desired to continue his apostolic work, he had simply to agree to build this campus church with no bitterness, to equip in it strong and sound trainers that would be able, when sent to their homelands, to build up the Body of Christ. Or, he had to define himself as an apostle of new and permanent by location Christ’s communities and leave the transient students’ church under someone else’s overseeing.
The gifts cry with the power of the blood and we must not shut our ears to them. We’ve all been sent to a gift that cries out.
