Priests for God

Priests for God

Jesus redeemed us to God out of every tongue and people and nation. Rev. 5:9. As a result, we became strangers and sojourners among our own family and friends according to the flesh, receiving another family according to the Spirit, who do God’s will. The Spirit of Christ separates us from the world in order to fashion us as He wills.

Jesus has made us priests to God. Rev. 1:6, 5:10. Our opposites are priests to the people. Ezek. 44:11-14. There are also priests to the people in our days that have been taught to please men and to serve people’s religious needs. However, they neither serve God nor please Him. On the other hand, there are other priests who serve God (vs. 15-16) to whom we are related, that is, we who are ordained to be priests to God in order to serve Him and to do His works. Being a priest means being a butcher; therefore a priest to God is a butcher to God. God cannot use him as a priest if he is not a butcher, nor can he slaughter anything.

Those who become disciples enter an apprenticeship and become students at God’s great faculty, where priests are instructed and equipped for the ministry in the church. To be equipped for the ministry in the church, you have to enter into the obedience of faith where you will notice your old, evil nature; it has always manifested itself but must now be put to death according to our covenant with God. Our old man and all his passions and desires must be slaughtered. All self-life, all self-will, and all peculiar opinions must be denied an opportunity to live by not granting them any of their demands. This tells us that we are to be priests to God ourselves. We are instructed to fear neither death nor the flesh and not to be afraid of blood. We become as hard as a rock and as strong as a lion, and because this work of God happens at the cost of ourselves according to the flesh, we become compassionate, merciful, meek, and kind to others. The fact that we are taught to slaughter our own self-life gives us special talents that God uses in our ministry with others; it makes us into useful priests. No one is coerced; everything happens according to the law of liberty. Jesus was compared to a lamb that is led to the slaughter; He did not open His mouth. Isa. 53:7. This also happens to us.

In the world it is an honor to be taught to be a priest to the people, to be a “student.” In God’s kingdom it is a real honor to go to this school for priests for the purpose of learning to remove the plank out of our own eye. Our education consists of removing the plank out of our own eye. Our life is hidden with Christ in God. Our honor is also hidden, but it is present as truly as we live the hidden life. Those on the outside do not see our “student caps,” for we are covered by the reproach of Christ. In this life we have God’s promises that our descendants will be numerous and that we shall inherit the blessing of Abraham. Isa. 48:19; Gal. 3:9.