And He Himself gave some as apostles and some as prophets and some as evangelists and some as shepherds and teachers, for the perfecting of the saints unto the work of the ministry, unto the building up of the Body of Christ. (Eph 4: 11-12)
Even though I was in the FTTL for a short period of time, I was brought into the realization of a lot of things. WE NEED TO BE TRAINED! After one month and one week of short-term training, I realised that 2 years is definitely necessary. In the training, you are brought on the high mountain and you enjoy God’s presence and His infusion. Can you imagine – Moses went up to the mountain and stayed there to enjoy the infusion of the Lord for “JUST” 40 days, and this caused him to express the glory of God? What about being in God’s presence for 2 years?
In order to survive in this crooked generation, the training is equipping us with the FULL armor of God: we are girding our loins with the truth (Eph 6:14a), putting on the breastplate of righteousness(v. 14b), shod our feet with gospel of peace (v. 15), taking the shield of faith (v. 16) – in defensive, and taking the sword of the Spirit (v. 17) which is the word of God – as the only but most effective offensive means to defeat the enemy!
It is because our wrestling is not against blood and flesh but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenlies (v. 12)!
The training is absolutely not for making you a spiritual giant or for boosting your spirituality but it is for the building up of the Body of Christ. The training helps you build up and increase your spiritual capacity towards God and man.
You increase your capacity of preaching the gospel, shepherding and nourishing the saints, conveying the truth in a concise way, building up your character, etc. However, the goal of the perfecting in all these aspects is never apart from the Body of Christ. All this training is mainly for the building up of the Body of Christ.
How to build up the Body of Christ? Is it by your ‘self’ or your capacity? No, saints, we need the other members of the Body of Christ. Through much fellowship and prayer with the Body, the Lord can work through us. When we are in one accord and in oneness, His burden will become our burden.
Our move and our decision will be His decision, and vice versa. When we are in real oneness and we have the one accord, we can go out to beget, to shepherd people, and to perfect the saints in an effective way. Every move requires much prayer. Every decision requires much fellowship. It will terminate the opportunity of involvement of the evil one, our self, our concept, our old man, tradition in our work. [sharing from brother C. W. (a Christian Student on the campus at AA, London) after his short-term training in the FTTL, the Full-Time Training in London]
AMEN bro! Training is of utmost importance it You want to be infused with the divine being of the Lord… ( sister MAry Grace, FTTL stands fo FULL TIME TRAINING IN LONDON)