Last week we looked at the critical truth that is revealed in Ephesians 4:4-6 about unity. In those verses we were not just called to unity, but told that we do have unity in Christ. If we are abiding in Him we will have unity with one another. How can a body be divided against itself? As we look at verses 7 and 8 in this chapter, we are given another crucial element of true church life:

To “each one” was given a measure of Christ’s gift. We are all members of Christ’s body, and all have a specific function in it. If any part of the body does not function for a long period of time it will become atrophied. This is another simple truth that has been one of the most elusive for the church.

As we have discussed before, I spent a couple of years asking every large church and every large conference in which I spoke, how many of the believers present knew their gifts and ministries in the body of Christ. The results were actually much worse than I anticipated. Only about 5 percent can positively answer that they know their own gifts and ministry in the body of Christ, and only half of those were actually functioning in them. Consider how well you would be doing if less than 5 percent of your body was functioning!
That is the present condition of the body of Christ. This is certainly one reason for the weakness and ineffectiveness of the church. At least part of this problem is the structure of the church that has evolved. It is now mostly a spectator sport with a few people doing the ministry and the rest cheering them on while passively sitting in their seats. New Testament church life is meant to be much more than this, and it will be before the end of this age comes. The Lord will have a fully functioning body that has all the grace, dignity, and power of the most fully developed human body. We can count on this because our God finishes what He begins, and this was His expressed purpose for His church.

So how do we get from where we are to where we are called to be? The rest of this chapter in Ephesians will give us some crucial insight, but our verses for this week are a foundational understanding. When the Lord ascended He gave gifts to men. He gives Himself when He gives these gifts. That is why we are each given this grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift.

I have heard many teach that we should not seek the gifts but rather the Giver. This sounds glib and wise, but it is actually contrary to Scripture. In I Corinthians 12-14, we are exhorted to pursue spiritual gifts, and especially the best ones. What such teachers fail to realize is that one of the ways we seek the Lord is by seeking His gifts. The gifts are Him. When He walked the earth He exhibited every one of the gifts of the Spirit. When He ascended He began giving these gifts that are a basic part of His nature, to men.

It is by growing in the gifts of the Spirit that we actually grow up into Christ, abide in Him, and become like Him. All of His gifts are love gifts, and as we will view later, are actually founded upon the fruit of the Spirit. He healed because He loves and does not want people to suffer. When this gift begins to grow in you, it is because you begin to identify with His love and compassion for people who are sick. Likewise, when we grow in the gift of prophecy it is because we begin to see with His eyes, hear with His ears, and feel with His heart. When we grow in the gift of miracles, we begin to identify with His power, and since He is the Almighty, we must know His power to really know Him. As we see the way He uses His power through us, we begin to understand His ways in this, and grow up into Him.

So we are not just seeking gifts by seeking the gifts, but we are seeking the Lord Himself. This also works together with the verses we covered last week about unity. This is because no one person is given all of His gifts, or all of Him. It is, therefore, only as we come together that He can be fully manifested in our midst. This we also see in I Corinthians 1:4-7:

The “testimony concerning Christ was confirmed” in them because they were “not lacking in any gift.” When all of the gifts are functioning in the body, then the Lord is fully functioning in the body. Then He can do all that He wants to do through us. This is what He wants to do through every local church. He wants to be able to manifest Himself through us in all ways through every local church. However, this will never happen until all of the members are equipped, and in unity, functioning together. How we get from where we are now to where we are supposed to be is the message of the rest of Ephesians, and will be our focus over the next several weeks as we continue to study it.