Royal Priesthood

“Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Pet. 2:9a, KJV)

We, as believers, are priests of The Most High. The Apostle Peter told us, “Ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation” (1 Pet. 2:9a, KJV). The Apostle John wrote, “Jesus Christ…has made us His Kingdom and His priests who serve before God His Father” (Rev. 1:5-6, NLT). Serving as priests becomes part of our high calling when we accept Jesus as our Savior and Lord.

We have inherited some, not all, of the priestly duties from the Levitical priesthood dating back to the time of Moses! While some practices, such as offering sacrifices, are not applicable today, we are still expected to intercede on behalf of the people and to direct others in worship to God. We also retain the important, though often overlooked, responsibility of imparting blessings upon God's people. Like other priestly duties, this is both a responsibility and a privilege. We can, and should, be speaking the blessing of God over others. It is our reasonable service to the Lord and it is our loving obligation to those around us.

God commanded the priests to bring His blessing upon the people to sanctify them. This world is corrupted by sin and sin leads to death. Despite that reality, the world's words and behaviors are competing to overtake and control our hearts. We are constantly engaged in spiritual warfare yet victory results from the Lord’s blessing. We read about the lure of the world in Romans 12:2, “Do not let yourselves be conformed to the standards of this world. Instead, keep letting yourselves be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you will know what God wants and will agree that what He wants is good, satisfying, and able to succeed”(CJB).

The “standards of this world” are self-focused. They promote thoughts and behaviors like hate, jealousy, lust, competitiveness, bigotry, condemnation, and so on. Consequently, words based on the world's standards are condemning, belittling, hurtful, and discouraging. The Apostle Paul distilled this life-or-death matter down to a choice. We can either conform to the world and its standards or we can conform to God and His standards. The New Testament authors confronted every conceivable sin at work within the Church. The ability, tendency, and temptation for those of us in the body of Christ to conform to the world's standards are beyond dispute. If we are honest with ourselves, we know this is true based on our own personal struggles, past or present.                  

In Matthew 12:34, Jesus said, “For the mouth speaks what overflows from the heart.” The hearts of those in the world (that is, those who do not know Jesus as their Savior) are trapped in sin without God’s Holy Spirit. Therefore curses come out of their mouths. When we allow their words to influence our minds and emotions (our “hearts”) then we allow ourselves to conform to their standards.

In Romans 12:2, Paul gave us the key to transformation – our minds must be renewed by the Word. The more we saturate ourselves with the Word of God, the more we know what God wants, and the more we agree that what He wants is good, satisfying, and able to succeed.

Jesus taught us God's kingdom standards in Matthew 22:37-40, “Jesus replied: ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments’” (NIV). Here we discover that God's standards are selfless. They are based on preferring others to ourselves. We are to love God completely, with every fiber of our being, and we are to love others more than we love ourselves.

These are tall orders. They may seem reasonable as you read them right now. However, when you are having a “discussion” with your spouse or you have been cut off in traffic, or the boss gives your promotion to a coworker, or a relationship is ended without explanation…that’s when obeying these commandments can be challenging. In these moments, our ability to conform to the selfless standards of God’s kingdom may appear beyond reach. Therefore, we must approach them with transformed perspectives from minds that have been renewed by the Word of God.

May you find wisdom and, in doing so, find life and win approval from the Lord (Prov. 8:35, NLT).