A Royal Priesthood
And so Peter says to the early church, “you're a chosen people”. And then he says “you are a royal priesthood”. And this is really an amazing thing that we, the people of Christ, are considered two things: royal and a priesthood.
In the Old Testament, these were very specific roles. The people wanted a king, and so God specially anointed people to be kings and to rule. And God also specially anointed and consecrated priests who would do special priestly duties to bring the people close to God.
And here comes Peter, a pretty staunch Jewish man who, after finding faith in Jesus, says to the people of God, you all are a royal priesthood. You are royalty. You are priests in God's eyes.
Priestly Duty Daily
Do you realize that in Christ you are royalty? Now that doesn't mean that you consider yourself better than anybody else. But it means that you realize that God has chosen you and called you and loved you, welcomed you into his royal family. That's amazing. It's not by anything you've done, just by his love.
Do you know that you're a priest as well? The priests in the Old Testament had to do all sorts of rituals, which Jesus has fulfilled now. We don't need to do all those rules that are laid out in Leviticus and so on. But we are priests in the sense that wherever we are, we're in a holy place and we are worshippers, drawing others to God by the way we live and by the things we do.
Let me ask you this: Are you using what you have to serve the community, and in particular the church community in your area, wherever it is you attend? You see, it's not so much about all wearing dog collars, but it's about everybody having gifting and abilities to be used to build up the people of God.
In that sense, we're all priests. We're all called to build up God's community. Using our own talents and our own time to serve in God's Kingdom in the world.
Royal Priest Daily
Let me ask you, do you see your job as a kind of priestly duty? It is. Wherever you are, whatever you're doing with your life, think of it as a kind of a priestly duty. We're all called in our own context to use our gifts to draw people to God and to serve everybody around us.
What if you woke up in the morning and said, “I'm a priest, I'm going to serve God today in all that I do”? In the end, we're all part of this royal priesthood. If we call ourselves followers of Jesus, clergy aren't above anybody else. They just use their gifts in a certain way in the local church. But we're all called to serve God through what we can do.
And so go today and every day and be a royal priest for God.
