You are writing a Gospel a chapter every day
Say what is the Gospel according to you? What you hear on a Sunday reflects on a Monday. Say what did you actually hear? Your life shows how much you really receive and how little you really believe. It is time for the body of Christ to shape up and deliver the true Gospel message that represents a living Christ and not a charismatic notion about God.You are our living epistles!
Apostle Andre Pelser
2003/05/02

Introduction: Considerations to help us understand our responsible position in the body of Christ.

2 Corinthians 3:2, 3
2 You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men;3 clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.

Changed lives prove our ministry
The Lord promised me a more excellent ministry
We enter into the glory of God through the veil
Transformation has to do with the image of Christ being formed in us
This is our sole purpose and our only occupation

The Greek word ?stello? (Strong?s 4724) means to fit, to equip, to place in order, to arrange, to prepare for one?s own use and it forms the basis of the word ?apostello? meaning ?epistle?. It also includes the fact that the one who planned this arrangement would make provision for it. The Lord who planned the Church provided apostles and prophets and other ministries to set the Church in order according to His design.

If every believer would realize it, we all would benefit greatly from an arrangement that the Lord is pleased with! The reason why so many believers do not fill their positions in the body of Christ is basically because they hear but do not mix what they hear with faith in their hearts.

Hebrews 4:2
2 For indeed the gospel was preached to us as well as to them; but the word which they heard did not profit them, not being mixed with faith in those who heard it.

Think of it in this way: you are our epistle, we are the epistle of those who taught us, they are the epistle of those who taught them, and so on until we actually hear Paul say to the Corinthian Church, ?you are our epistle?. Paul, Peter and all the other apostles are the epistle of the Lord Jesus Christ and He is the epistle of the prophets such as Elijah and Moses who are epistles of the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
These epistles were written in the spiritual realm first and then translated in understandable earthly terms. The word of God is constantly looking for earthly expressions. As epistles we are the ?phaneroo? (Strong?s 5318) or visible manifestation of what has been written in our hearts through the preaching of the Word. Our words and deeds are plainly recognized and tell a tale about our Church.

John 1:14
14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the
glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.

God wants His creative word to find lodging in a human body so that it can be expressed in the earth. If we are living epistles of Christ, what is the Gospel according to us? If people read our lives like books, what will they discover? Is the image of Christ clearly visible or is it clouded over by various other desires and hardness of heart, sins and disobedience? Is the message veiled in our hearts so that no one can understand it when they read it? Or has the veil been taken away? Are we trying to live the life of Christ according to the law of the letter or by the power of the spirit?

Jesus? constant advice to his disciples was to let the word of God dwell richly in them for they cannot do anything by themselves. He is the vine and we are the branches and unless we abide in Him and let His word abide in us we cannot produce any fruit. How many Christians have to confess that they never spend time with the Word of God? How many never pray? How many never do what God tells them to do through the preaching of the Word on a Sunday? How are we going to face God one day to explain our lack of discipline? How are we going to explain our disobedience? If we had to stop eating for more than 50 days we would physically die ? how much more would be die spiritually if we do not feed on the living word of God? Some people think that hearing the word once per week is enough to keep them going. How weak and feeble their spirits must be!
We are the living epistles of the word of God
What does the Gospel say according to us? When others read our lives will they commit themselves to serve the living God with fervent spirits? It is time that we take a long, hard look at ourselves in the mirror of God?s Word to find out exactly what we look like before God. Everything is naked and open to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do. We cannot hide anything from Him. All our imperfections and failures are glaringly visible to Him. We might as well come clean and admit where we fail. We cannot impress Him with our personalities and the scheming that helps us fake our way through life. Oh, God, your Spirit demands reality in our lives.
Who will hear our Report?
Why is it that we can sit in Church Sunday after Sunday and never grow spiritually and never produce any fruit in the Church? How can we say we love the Lord but never lead any soul to Him? How can we say we fear Him and still not obey Him?
Who will hear our report and to whom will the arm of the Lord be revealed? This is still the cry of the prophet today: Lord if I tell people what you tell me, who will actually listen to what I have to say? Who will do what I tell them to do? Who will become responsible for what they hear?

If believers would show their faith by their good works our city and our nations will change. But believers do not do what they believe. Believers are deceived by all the false doctrines because they have rejected the apostles and prophets God has sent to them. They do not obey the Word of God. That is why the Church is in the state it is in. Our own condition rebukes us. Our own sins rebuke us. Our condition is an indictment against us that our lives are not the epistles they should be.

How can we change the status quo? How can we break through into a new dimension of reality? How can we make sure that our living epistles are an advantage to the Kingdom of God and that our lives will spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ in truth?

There are five considerations we have to take into account if we want to become living epistles of Christ for the sake of the rest of the body of believers in the Church:

1. We need to understand why we need apostles
2. We need to follow the examples of apostles
3. We need to obey the word preached by apostles
4. We need to break through into triumph in Christ
5. We need to realize that our sufficiency is from God
The Value of True Apostles
True apostles are not peddlers of the word as so many are theses days. They see a gap to make money and they write books and hold seminars and ride on the back of others to make themselves a name and to make a fortune out of the people of God. They are insincere and many of them parade themselves as apostles but they are not called to be apostles. They are opportunists who know how to market themselves. None of them would lay down their lives for others or for the Gospel?s sake. Yet, because their material is so impressive and they have made themselves a great name, people follow them like sheep?

True apostles display simplicity and godly sincerity in everything they do. When they are afflicted it is for the sake of others. The sufferings of Christ