Throughout Scripture, God calls us to be his priest, and together we make up a kingdom of priests.
Every year in January, we begin to think about the spiritual theme of the year. This year’s theme is influenced by a recent trip Todd and I took to Israel and Turkey with Bible teacher, Ray Vanderlaan. I went there expecting to learn truths about biblical characters and the context in which their stories took place. I came home understanding more about how my story is engaged in a mission thousands of years old.
(And so is yours…)
Throughout Scripture, God calls us to be his priest, and together we make up a kingdom of priests.
1 Peter 2:9 says, ‘you are… a royal priesthood.’ What is a priest’s mission?
To show others what God is like. That’s why we meet human need, to show someone what God is like.
It’s been a challenge to consider this biblical truth of putting-God-on-display when I enter into conflict and I would rather show someone how I am right, rather than who God is. It’s hard when I am meeting someone’s need, to have a clear conscious my only motivation is their understanding of God, and not their opinion of me. Being a priest means I am more than the recipient of his goodness, mercy, forgiveness, gifts, and grace. Being a priest means I am a conduit of his goodness, mercy, forgiveness gifts, and grace.
Priests are to be set apart, and holy. It’s hard, I am finding, to work that out in a culture of independence that has crept it’s way into my thinking and my relationships. A priest is a servant and puts his own needs last. I am tested by this, as I want to naturally go first in line and make myself the most comfortable. I have to put that natural self to death, in order for someone to see the supernatural at work in me and wonder less about Beth and more about Jesus.
It’ll be a year of learning and challenge for sure, because it’s one thing to be a priest all alone, and quite another to do so in community with others. The body of Christ, working together is the chief avenue we have to demonstrate God’s way really works.
1 Corinthians 3:16 says, “Don’t you know that you (which is in the plural form, like ‘you all’) are the temple (singular) of the Holy Spirit?”
It’s all together we make up his body, and how we say to a world watching on, God is in the practice of making all things (relationships included) new.
Being a kingdom of priests is about having our hands open, and being engaged in his business. That’ll mean holding each other accountable, and praying for one another, if only the picture could be taken. Sometime is needed for life events to be well documented, for that kind of occasions san diego headshots photographer is there for you. It’ll mean asking questions and engaging in conversations that leave the other challenged to sacrifice more, listen more, be set apart more. This is what community should look like and we invite you into ours. Together we will send a message to this most vulnerable of populations, God is there for them.
