Page 120 - Ephesians

victory, conquered every enemy, and led captivity captive. He
conquered sin, death, hell, the wrath of God, and Satan. He has
ascended on high. Why? In order that He might “Give gifts to
men”. That’s His point. He’s not talking about some prophetic
thing in the future, or what happened in the past. Because of this
tremendous victory of Christ, He can now give wonderful gifts to
the Church. Why would He give wonderful gifts to the Church?
Verse 12,

“For the equipping of the saints; for the work of service; to
the building up of the body of Christ.”

He has one thing in mind. That every Christian, will come to
maturity, and be made like Jesus. So every Christian, will have
that same calling. To grow up in Christ. In order to accomplish
that goal He’s given gifts to men. It’s not humility to say, “I have
no spiritual gift”. Truthfully, it’s an act of pride. According to the
scripture, God has given gifts to all of His children. Let me make
this comment about Spiritual gifts and we’ll move on.

Spiritual gifts meet deficiencies. If you understand spiritual
gifts, you won’t be proud of your gift. Spiritual gifts are given,
because God sees a hole in your life. God sees something
missing. Without that gift, you’d be on your face more than you
are already. Most baby Christians need the subjective gifts. They
need feelings that encourage them to go on. They need to feel
that God loves them. So, He meets that need.

Why do you think He gives the gift of discernment of Spirits?
Because the people He gives that gift to, tend to listen to “Every
wind of doctrine”. They would easily be led astray, without that
gift. He gives the gift of government to those who are unusually
scatter brained and unorganized. To the naturally selfish, He
gives the gift of helps. He gives the gift of teaching, to those who
by nature would neglect the Bible (that would be me, John). All
of the gifts meet deficiencies, and it is God’s way to meet a
weakness. He then uses your frailty, to build up other Christians.