Christ restored to the church as the great Shepherd

The office of pastor is represented by the ring finger on the Hand of God. They are married to the church and must be on the job 24 hours a day. Their main function is to love and care for the sheep. They pull the wool apart and look for the spiritual scratches and cuts which go unnoticed many times by the other offices. They display the unconditional love that God has for His people. No matter how rotten the sheep are, the Pastor will come to their defense. They are that part of Jesus that knows every hair on your head.

Differing from the Prophet and Apostle, God through the Pastor has more of a one-on-one relationship with the sheep. Christ knowing and caring for His Bride is exemplified in Pastors as they care for God's flock.

When ministers are chosen by God, it is quite evident, as you survey those He chose, that He is definitely not a respecter of persons. Being "Jew or Greek, male or female" does not matter to God when it comes to spiritual matters and filling the fivefold offices that function over His people. Both genders and all nationalities will be represented so the sensitive things of the natural can be wisely dealt with and handled, as well as the spiritual situations that arise in the Church family.

Pastors are mainly there to minister to, not just preach at the flock. It is therefore beneficial for them to be trained in the Isaiah 61, or the deliverance ministry. Many times gifted men and women will come to God's family looking for a deeper walk with God. They are very often so brow-beaten by life however, and scarred by the enemy, that it is only through deliverance, inner healing and loving guidance that they can be set free to take their place in God's family and function as a healthy member of the body of Christ. How many individuals in the traditional church have even been offered this ministry of deliverance? How many Pastors teach why it is needed?

Pastors stand between the Powers and Principalities over their church family in much the same way a father covers his natural family. Because of the close relationship the Pastors have with the individual sheep, they are the best equipped to keep the umbrella covering over the sheep on a one on one basis. This is a different umbrella than the Apostolic and Prophetic covering that is over the entire leadership as well as the flock. In fact, the offices of the Apostle and the Prophet unite to form an umbrella over the entire Universal Church.

As a parent disciplines their children, teaching them to repent, so Pastors must do likewise for the flock. First they experience the Feast of Passover by walking through the four (4) Posts representing the gospels into the Courtyard as drawn by the Holy Spirit through the evangelist. Now however, it becomes the job of the Pastors to teach them to cut the cords of iniquity and renounce all affiliation with, and soul ties to, the cursed Adamic race. These new believers must be prepared properly for baptism, or they will not experience the Feast of Unleavened Bread, where the leaven, or sin, is purged from their lives or the Feast of First Fruits so they can become new creatures and a part of God's family. In fact, if not properly taught, the people will come up from baptism no different than when they went down in the water. If indeed the first Holy Convocation (Passover, Unleavened Bread, and First Fruits) is experienced, pastors must then encourage the flock to go on to experience all the rest of the Feasts. They should teach them to develop a taste for the truth, to eat all of the Lamb and to continue their walk up the King's Highway. All of the Wedding Supper must be served, or each feast experienced, before the end. Otherwise, the sheep will not be nourished enough to withstand the end time warfare or be raised up to properly fight. They must be given the light of revelation so they can see the vision of the Kingdom and find their way into eternity.

The Pastors also must make the flock see the consequences of not walking in Truth. If they fail to warn someone in error, they will stand before God with the responsibility of having lost one of His sheep.

If the Pastor does feed the sheep on truth, and rebukes and warns the flock when they are wrong, yet they refuse to make the Highway of Holiness their path, the pastor will be exonerated and the sheep will become the fooled elect, a part of Antichrist, and 2nd Thessalonians 2:10-12 will apply to them.

As there has been the restoration of the Prophet and the Apostle for true revelation knowledge to be brought forth, so there must be end time, cutting edge Pastors guarding the flock against the moldy bread of the old church being fed to them. They must see that the flock is fed only fresh spiritual food or fresh manna. Pastors must at the same time adamantly guard and protect God's sheep from the Antichrist Spirit that operates through those who teach false doctrines, that defend their religious theories, and justify their own unwillingness to change. There are many out there that drink, smoke, get involved in wrong relationships etc. behind closed doors that appear holy and clean in front of God's people! Pastors must warn the sheep that when they watch T.V. ministries for instance, or listen to, quote unquote, "religious music", that without knowing the fruit of the lives of the people they are allowing to speak into them, they are in danger of opening themselves to evil spirits while being fed religious traditions and lies. Rebellious sheep that refuse to listen, or a flock with tainted leadership or those without any church covering at all, may very well become a part of the tree of good and evil and be filled with the spirit of Antichrist, without even knowing it. (Let us look at I John 4:1-3).

It is Christ in us and He has been here in us since the upper room experience. Colossians 1:27 proves this to us:

If the outside sources we look to for knowledge do not teach and warn that the body of Christ will be attacked by the body of Satan, beware. If they do not teach about the eternal triumphant church or about God's people being regenerated and brought back to the perfection of the garden, then these are ones Pastors are obligated to warn against! Why? Because they are not teaching what God is releasing to His family for the end of this age.

Pastors to a large degree are responsible for seeing that every body part in the body of Christ is functioning as it should. For the body to operate as a well oiled machine, so to speak, everyone must be doing their part. To accomplish this, each must be able to work in their individual gifting. This means we should be efficiently working in or working towards the creative gifts our Father creates in us at birth. These are what the world would call our natural gifting. We must also be able to operate as the gifts of Christ that Jesus gives to the church if we are ones called to the fivefold offices, and everyone that is a part of the body must learn how to yield their vessels to the Holy Spirit so His gifting and ability can flow through us.

The Father's gifts are the natural talents that we are created with. For instance, some are born teachers. We find them in schools and business etc. Prophetically gifted people make good speakers, lawyers, doctors and veterinarians with their keen insight and natural discernment. The musically inclined are found everywhere. There are people with a natural gifting to sell, that if saved and a part of God's Kingdom, would probably be able to present truth very well. These traits or gifts may have been honed and perfected through education, but basically those endowed with special gifting were just plain created that way. When used negatively and worldly however, you have a people that will sell you the Brooklyn Bridge, use their discernment to know and take advantage of your weaknesses, become psychics that will tell your fortune or lawyers that will take you to the cleaners. The world's musicians will play music for every kind of entertainment possible and teachers will make sure you understand all that is written by our greatest intellects. Without realizing it, they are using their natural gifting to build and establish Satan's kingdom. They are clever, crafty and shrewd like their master and quite proud of it. Will God remove their gifting from them? No. See Romans 11:29.

So don't trust gifting to prove God's people are at work!

The people filling these offices are gifts Christ gives to God's people. They are vessels God operates through to protect His family and build His Kingdom. Let us look at the remainder of the scripture to see what God's gifts are used for.

So in other words, God's fivefold ministers are the gifts that unite God's people into the body of Christ, and help them to work together in love to achieve the goals and objectives God has for this planet. They are the head of His government. Pastors have a hand in raising the young that are called by God to these offices. They must be carefully trained for their priesthood and governmental duties.

The gifts of the Spirit are the supernatural abilities an individual functions in as the Holy Spirit flows through them. Each of the nine gifts are different manifestations of the Spirit's activity through God's people and is in no way just a heightened natural ability. Everyone in the body should be able to operate in the gifts comfortably, but it is also the responsibility of the pastor to see that they are not only able to work in them, but that they have a set of guidelines and Godly principles to abide by while using them. For instance, prophecy must be recorded to be judged by other prophets as well as saving the message from God for the sake of the one being prophesied to. God wants everything done decently and in order, but He does want His people to be knowledgeable and given the opportunity to learn in a safe but free environment.

Anyone called to government may find themselves Pastoring a congregation for one reason or another, but there is a very special anointing on those God calls to the office of Pastor. They fiercely protect, wisely teach and guide and extend the love of God as they shepherd the flock. Baby new creatures want this love, old tired battle-scarred warriors need it, in fact we all need love from people that truly care about us if we will only admit it. Look to the Lord in all of the leadership to satisfy this need, but the Greater Shepherd will especially, unconditionally, love you through the office of Pastor.