Brother J’s Gift

GodSaidManSaid received the following e-mail:

I stumbled onto your website via the LORD a couple of years ago.  It was the source God used to save me.  I have been growing since and learning a great deal about the LORD.  However, I am not aware of the gift God has given me or how to use what I do have.  I was wondering if you have any suggestions.  Maybe you could pray for me.  I attend a Calvary Chapel church in Olympia, WA.  We read from the Bible and my wife gets a lot from this particular teaching style.  I really get ministered to by the way you teach.  So I am coming to you for some advice.  Maybe you can explain to me how I need to hear it.  I am sure God will be there ahead of time so I will just wait in faith.  Just curious: where is your church located?  What is the name of it?  Thank you for all you do and have done.  May God Bless you and all your work.

Dear Brother J, thank you for your edifying message.  I have read it in the house of the saints.  Please forgive the tardiness of this response, although I’m certain it is in its right time for you.  You are highly, highly valued at GodSaidManSaid, and certainly by our Father and His mighty Son Christ Jesus, the Holy Ghost, and the host of heaven.  Your blood-bought soul is worth more than the aggregate wealth of the entire universe.  You are a son of the Almighty God.  May the face of the Lord shine upon you, your home, and all that your hands shall touch, with light and truth. 

In this response to Brother J., we will appear to be diverting from this website’s standard paradigm, which is “God Said, Man Said, the Record,” but the discerning eye will note that we are still there.

Most, if not all, Christians have pondered the same questions as Brother J.  “What is my particular gift?  What is God’s will for my life?  How do I use what God has given me?”  The answer to these three questions is amazingly singular.  Regarding God’s will, it is critical to note that it is the key to eternal life in Christ.  Jesus said in Matthew 7:21:

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.

What, then, is the will of the Father?  The amazingly singular nature of God’s will for man, and even His will for heaven and earth, is found in Ephesians 1:9-10:

9  Having made known unto us the mystery of his will, according to his good pleasure which he hath purposed in himself:

10  That in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:

The mystery of God’s will is so singularly simple that even a child can understand it, yet to the wise of this world, it is incomprehensible.  I Corinthians 1:26-28:

26  For ye see your calling, brethren, how that not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called:                        

27  But God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty;

28  And base things of the world, and things which are despised, hath God chosen, yea, and things which are not, to bring to naught things that are:

The foundation to understanding the mystery of God’s will is discovered in the first three chapters of Genesis.  Adam and Eve were created by God and they were immortal.  God gave them only one commandment.  Genesis 2:17:

But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.

They dwelt in a place called Paradise.  In chapter three of Genesis, the second voice began to speak in Paradise, and that voice was Satan’s.  Eve yielded to the second voice and Adam followed her lead.  In essence, they sold their birthright to Satan, and he became the little g-o-d of this earth.  They died spiritually that very day.  All of their children—which includes you and me—were spiritually stillborn, or as the Scriptures state, “dead in trespasses and sins.”  When the second voice was embraced, the “law of sin and death” began to reign.  Immortality was gone, and Paradise lost.  All sin, sickness, and death are products of the second voice—even hell, Armageddon, the Great White Throne Judgment, and the Lake of Fire are included.  Aligning oneself with the first voice alone makes possible a reentry into immortality and Paradise.  Keep this magnificent truth in mind as we proceed.

Doing the will of the Father is the prerequisite for entering the Kingdom of heaven.  Revelation of the mystery of His will was outlined in Ephesians 1:9-10 (quoted above).  Verse 10 states:

That in the dispensation of the fullness of times he might gather together in one all things in Christ, both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:

Imagine that all things in heaven and earth must be gathered together in one in Christ Jesus—the first voice.  The first phrase of this passage is:

That in the dispensation of the fullness of times...

The fullness of times, with “times” being plural, begins with time as known in Genesis 1, and it continues from there.  Example:

• Adam to Noah;

• Noah to Abraham;

• Abraham to Moses;

• Moses to Christ;

• Christ Jesus to the Great Tribulation;

• Tribulation to Christ’s appearance at Armageddon where Satan is bound for 1,000 years;

• The thousand-year reign of Christ;

• Satan loosed for a little while as he rallies the nations against God’s Christ;                          

• God’s destruction of the wicked and the final Great White Throne Judgment;

• After this, time is over and eternity begins.

The next phrase in verse 10 reads:

...he might gather together in one all things in Christ,...                                                 

During the three days the tomb of Jesus Christ was sealed, He descended into the earth to a place He called Abraham’s bosom.  This was a place where the righteous dwelt awaiting the redeeming blood of Jesus.  At this time, Jesus leads those in Abraham’s bosom into heaven.  From that time on, they are called Christians.

Finally, from the time of Christ till the end of time, all those who have been born-again—those who have become Christians—will be gathered together through a series of events and united as one with those of Abraham’s bosom.  This oneship, of course, is Christ Jesus.  Note that all believers become one.

The last part of Ephesians 1:10 reads:

...both which are in heaven, and which are on earth; even in him:

The fate of the earth is described in II Peter 3:10:

But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

God will then create a new heaven and a new earth.  The New Jerusalem will come down from heaven.  This is where God, His Christ, all the host of heaven, as well as all of the redeemed spend eternity.  Hebrews 12:22-24:

22  But ye are come unto mount Sion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels,

23  To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect,