THE REVIVAL OF THE CHURCH
We understand that the Church of the Lord Jesus received the baptism with the Holy Spirit with one main objective: the edification of the church.
In order to carry out the Lord’s Work, which is the edification of the Church, it is necessary first to know God’s Project for this edification. To enable us to know His Project, the Lord granted the church these spiritual resources:
- The Word of God, especially the New Testament, that contains specific instructions regarding the functioning of the Church; and
- The Holy Spirit, that operates through the 9 spiritual gifts (I Cor. 12:8-10) and the 5 ministries (Ef. 4:11).
These resources allow the Lord Jesus to indeed – and not just in theory – become the Head of the Church, that is His Body. Through His written Word and the Word that is transmitted to us through the spiritual gifts, the Lord Jesus is able to rule over His church, revealing His project for its edification. Through the 5 ministries, the Lord rules over His Church, because the servants used in these ministries carry out the Work of God based upon the doctrine revealed in the Bible (II Tim 3:16-17) and the specific instructions transmitted through the spiritual gifts, testing the gifts (II Tes. 5:10-20) and applying them with wisdom (I Cor. 14:20, 40).
It was to allow Jesus to communicate with His Church that the Lord decided to baptize His servants with the Holy Spirit – youth, adults and elderly – in the last days. According to Joel, the prophet, as a consequence of this baptism, His servants would receive visions, dreams and prophecies (Joel 2:28), that is, all the gifts that allow the Lord to reveal His will to his servants. The most emphasized gifts in the second half of the twentieth century, however, were the gifts of tongues and healings. And whenever there were prophecies, visions and dreams, they were mainly addressed
to one person, in order to benefit one individual, and not to transmit orientations from the Lord to the Church in order to direct its functions (reveal anointings for pastors, show where the Churches should evangelize, point out solutions for problems in the church, etc.)...
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