Who's Equipping Who......For What?

Eph 4:11-13 And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.


Now, unless I am missing something here, it appears as though Jesus set it up for the saints to be fully equipped to fulfill their destiny given to them by God........ and, there would be a progression of this equipping to bring about a completeness in Christ for each saint. That really doesn't sound all that complicated.........unless the spirit of man gets in the way.


Seems like down through the years since Paul penned the letter to the saints in the church of Ephesus things have gotten a bit complicated.........resulting in a myriad of useless equipping stuff. I believe the first major problem comes from the equippers themselves, those men and women that God has given great responsibility to...... pointing the saints in the right direction so they will be able to "stand firm" when the time comes. Paul emphasized this a little later in his letter;

Eph 6:13 Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm.


The "equippers" have spent endless hours debating everything from "which equippers still exist in the church today"to"who should be the senior equipper"............absolutely pathetic. If we, as equippers, are relying on His Holy Spirit to guide and direct us into all the truth (John 16:13), then it shouldn't be rocket science to have effective equipping. The second major problem would be the equipees.................because of very poor basic training equipping after their salvation experience, many of the saints are following after anyone who will tell them what they want to hear (2 Timothy 4). The results are devastating as we move into the "tumultuous & desperate" times of 2 Timothy 3.


So, this equipper would like to make a suggestion, If you are truly interested in fulfilling your destiny and standing firm in the process, and you know that difficult times lie ahead, why not get the equipping you need from the best equippers on the planet. If you need brain surgery you don't go to a podiatrist for help.............search out your equipping from those who are walking victorious in "tumultuous & desperate" times now. The following links will take you to a study in Philippians where Paul is encouraging the saints to do that very thing;


http://www.theundergrounded.org/observesg.pdf

http://www.theundergrounded.org/index.html click on the link in the bottom right hand corner for a zipped Power Point program if you would like to equip others.



STAND FIRM saints of God.