FIVE SMOOTH STONES - The Five Ascension Gifts in the Heavenly Shepherds Bag

FIVE SMOOTH STONES — The Five Ascension Gifts in the Heavenly Shepherd’s Bag

Chapter Fourteen

PERFECTING THE PROPHETIC MINISTRY

A ll Christians should strive for mastery in every endeavor and especially in their divine gifts and callings. The apostle Paul expressed to us in Ephesians 4 that the ascension ministries were given by the Lord to help perfect and equip the believers in their Godly service. While the spirit given to each Christian at salvation is perfect, the Christian himself is currently being perfected and will not fully attain perfection until the resurrection. In the meantime, we are “being perfected.” Being transformed into His likeness is another way to communicate this idea. Each Christian is called and has gifts. To state this is not to imply that each person is fully mature in their gift or calling from the day they are born, or born again. While gifts are given according to His grace, how we mature in them has a lot to do with our own activities, commitment, belief systems, and even discipleship. Being called, and functioning in maturity in gifts or ministry, are not the same thing. When realizing that they have been given a gift or called to a ministry a person needs to also realize that they have been granted an opportunity to grow and mature in those gifts or ministries, and it will take time and effort to be equipped or perfected. God knows our calling before we do. Jeremiah 1:5 “ Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; Before you were born I sanctified you; I ordained you a prophet to the nations .” A wonderful aspect of the prophetic ministry is to identify spiritual gifts, callings, and ministries that a person has, and to even energize these for that person. However, there has been too much confusion and disappointment surrounding this idea because of a failure to identify and separate the gift and the process of maturing in the gift. As with anything in life there are those who have been given greater opportunity than others to learn and grow in the things they have been given. There is no record of Elijah in the Bible before he came

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