God Gives us Gifts
One of the beloved traditions of the Christmas season is gift giving. The tradition of this can be said to reflect the first gifts given to Jesus by the wise men. However, today the practice of gift giving at Christmas is primarily secular. It doesn’t need to be. God is also interested in gift giving and has given us amazing gifts that we can be really excited about. One mention of God giving gifts to us is found in Ephesians 4:11-16
“Now these are the gifts Christ gave to the church: the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, and the pastors and teachers.
Their responsibility is to equip God’s people to do his work and build up the church…until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature…We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church…the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love.”
Huh?? Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers are not words we associate with gifts. Where is the “feel-good” in these words? Where is the excited-jumping-up-and-down-unwrap-me in these words?
But I certainly don’t want to overlook something special from God that he has given to me as an expression of his love. So lets “unpack” this, shall we?
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