Wednesday, June 21, 2017

Understanding Your Priestly Role In Your New Life In Christ



You are…a royal priesthood… —1 Peter 2:9

{CHAMBERS} “By what right have we become “a royal priesthood”? It is by the right of the atonement by the Cross of Christ that this has been accomplished. Are we prepared to purposely disregard ourselves and to launch out into the priestly work of prayer? The continual inner-searching we do in an effort to see if we are what we ought to be generates a self-centered, sickly type of Christianity, not the vigorous and simple life of a child of God. Until we get into this right and proper relationship with God, it is simply a case of our “hanging on by the skin of our teeth,” although we say, “What a wonderful victory I have!” Yet there is nothing at all in that which indicates the miracle of redemption. Launch out in reckless, unrestrained belief that the redemption is complete. Then don’t worry anymore about yourself, but begin to do as Jesus Christ has said, in essence, “Pray for the friend who comes to you at midnight, pray for the saints of God, and pray for all men.” Pray with the realization that you are perfect only in Christ Jesus, not on the basis of this argument: “Oh, Lord, I have done my best; please hear me now.” How long is it going to take God to free us from the unhealthy habit of thinking only about ourselves? We must get to the point of being sick to death of ourselves, until there is no longer any surprise at anything God might tell us about ourselves. We cannot reach and understand the depths of our own meagerness. There is only one place where we are right with God, and that is in Christ Jesus. Once we are there, we have to pour out our lives for all we are worth in this ministry of the inner life.”

{ELGIN}  Have you ever heard the term “personal relationship with Jesus Christ”?  Or “me and Jesus we got a good thing going”.  Much of our “personal relationship” in our Christian lives is wrapped up in sin management and looking for blessings from God.  (1 Peter 2:9)  “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”  God has saved you, not just for your own benefit but in order that you might declare the Good News to a lost world.  Priests make intercession for others.  Your life’s focus should not be on feathering your own spiritual nest, but ministering to the spiritually weak and the lost.  James 1:27 says this, “Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.”  You want to practice your faith?  The first step, not the final one, is to have a clean heart.  The next is intercession .. both in prayer and in good works.  Jesus said if you want to follow Him you must offer yourself as a sacrifice (pick up your cross), deny yourself (in favor of others) and follow Him (being one with the Father).  Such is the life we are called to.  Your home should not be a fortified sanctuary from the world, but a lighthouse for those living around you.

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