I remember in the early 90's there was such an emphasis on the five fold ministry and I served faithfully in a prophetic fellowship that stressed all the gifts and the so called offices that went with them. I don't think that this teaching was necessarily bad, it is just what we do with it that can create bad fruit. I got licensed in that fellowship and received great prophetic words about how God was going to use me in the years to come. Then God began to pop my bubble and show me what real ministry was.

I was sent to California and I served with some fairly well known people on what would be considered the higher levels of ministry, but God began to show me all the greed, competition, and idolatry of ministry that was taking place and just how corrupt things had become. I even had a well-known television minister try to seduce me and found out that this man was a homosexual. The Lord then set me with a prophet that just ministered to drug addicts and alcoholics and I began to see how lacking I was.

I could see in a short time that my heart was full of selfish ambition and a need to find value through ministry. Don't get me wrong, I did care about these people, but the mixture of my flesh and Spirit contaminated and defiled my service to the Lord. I canceled my ministry license and dropped the whole reverend title because the Lord showed me that titles are for those that want validation, not for people that want to serve. God showed me that it was His love and gospel that needed to be promoted.

Do we have and need these different gifts in the Body? Yes of course we do, but elevating them to a status beyond that of just a servant of Jesus Christ is nothing more than idolatry. When Paul wrote letters to the churches he described himself as a servant of Jesus Christ that happens to do the work of an apostle, he does not use his service to dominate or self-promote. In these coming days we must focus on lifting up Jesus Christ and not our so-called gifts or titles. He alone deserves all glory, not us.