Episode 1: Ominous Clouds Gather Momentum on the Horizon

                                                Job 1: 6 – 12.

6 Now there was a day when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them.

                                                               Reviewing

               we have been preoccupied with consideration of the attitudinal substances of Job’s priesthood, which we said predated the more copious and more parablic Moses’s Law and its priesthood (Job 1: 5). From there we assayed to unravel the mind of God about priest and kings He is making on the earth. Further still, we explored the History of the Life of the Priest of God – again in the light of the New Testament, though the Holy Spirit also took us through the book of Ezekiel.

                Now, starting from verse 6 of chapter one of the book of Job, the story begins to gather momentum; there appear ominous clouds on the horizon. The sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord. Satan was also there! Evidently, God was fascinated and inquired of him of his activities. Satan was quick to present his case, but fell short of the whole truth. Between God and him the unspoken message was all of a shout. The Holy Spirit, the author, actually points out something to us.  Thew story continues.

                The Lord Himself pointed out to Satan on earth – upon which he said he had been going up and down; to and fro – a man who had the potentialities of His Son in whom and for whom He created the world and the cosmos. Satan’s arguments fall in successive rapidity. And, before one could draw a breath, he has succeeded in wrenching a permission to sift Job in order to prove his case; God, a stakeholder in the righteous walk of Job, also needs a point to prove in this case besides the point that He is the just and true One! Now, the battle is joined and Job, a representation of man in this story, is caught between the duo out to prove, each a point, not only contradicting in nature but are mutually exclusive.     

                Today, we shall be engaging a certain phrase which will ground and prepare us  for later reflections in our meditation.

                                                The  sons of God

                The phrase first occurs in Genesis 6: 2, 4; the second, third and fourth occurrences are in the book of Job.

 Genesis 6: 2: . . .that the sons of God saw the daughters of men. . .they took them wives of all which they chose. This phrase has been argued to mean the godly line of the sons of Seth coming to take wives from among the ungodly daughters of wicked Cain. It is not so clearly stated in that passage or any other passage for that matter that this is about the godly Sethites taking taking wives from wicked Cainites. Another school believes that the phrase means angels. A counter argument is that angels are sexless, do not marry, according to Jesus. But then again, Jude 6 speaks of the angels which kept not their first estate, but left their own habitation. Pastor Ernest Paul advanced an argument recently. He argued that if the phrase means the godly line of Set, then they, the godly line should have been spared in the course of the destruction of the flood.

                There is a need to get this clear. We are not here to argue a theological point; we are trying to get on a stable rock of faith.

 Job 38:7 reveals the identity of these beings called the sons of God, using parallelism in Hebraic poetry: when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy. Here, the phrase morning stars parallels or is parallel to the other phrase sons of God. In other words, one means the other. Who or what are stars? According to the Lord Jesus, stars are angels – which may be spirit or human angels [Rev. 1: 20]. The word morning means brilliant, dawn, breaking of the day or daylight; this indicates that there are angels associated with the brightness or the brilliance of the dawn. It is worthy of note that the star is a gigantic mass of gas around which all other masses gravitate and orbit. In essence, stars are centres of life, above average. From what we have seen, it is evident that the sons of God of Job 1: 6 and 2:1 are of the realms of heaven; they were certainly spirits of stature, in their making and nature; they had the same configuration of existence as, but  are apart from, the being called Satan.

The History of the Life of the Priest of God (10)

     Job 1: 5 has been the point of our meditation this far.

    We continue with this in Ezekiel 44: 17 – 18:

  When they enter the gates of the inner court, they are to wear linen clothes; they must not wear any wollen garment while ministering at the gates of the inner court or inside the temple…. They must not wear anything that makes them perspire.

     Rest the Grand finale: Great Grace

          Christ is seated at the right hand of God; He is inclusively our representative before the Lord. It means that we, including the Lord are both seated at the right hand of God (Ephesians 2: 6). 

           The inner court is not a place of sweating; it is a place of rest. God swear in his word, “ … if they must enter into my rest…”  and then again in the 9^th verse of the same Hebrew chapter 4, “There remained therefore a rest [or the keeping of Sabbath] to the people of God.”

             The priest in his walk into the inner court, away from the people, begins the entering into rest, beginning from the “gates of the inner court.” He does not wear sweat-inducing clothes made of woollen material. This speaks strongly of grace. The priest does not struggle to be or to do anything; he learns to rest by faith on the arms of the Lord. Ringing in his ears is the Spirit’s injunction to come boldly to the throne of grace to obtain or find mercy, and to receive grace for time of needs (Hebrew 4: 16). In the location of the inner court, he is able to look back and is amazed at what God has done for him.

We were brought up to resist sin and sins. We knew the bible says that “Whosowever  is born of God doth not commit sin; for his seed remaineth in him: and he cannot sin because he is born of God” (1 John 3: 9). Yet we found in us certain habits, evils and hated thoughts struggling in us, in our hearts. So we despaired and began to wonder whether we were truly saved, thinking, If  I were saved, why do I still have these unrighteous tendencies?  We cried; we agonised and despaired of ever living above the problem.

            In a world known for its stratification and competitions for the scarce resources of life, we found it easy to envy brothers  “more blessed ” than us because it was as if God was more favourably disposed to help them than us; we felt that this meant they were closer to God than the rest of us. Imagine this scenario: we were both single sisters and prayed for husbands. God answered her prayers, but mine He did not hear. Years went by, many more sisters joined the marital bliss, as they call it and I was yet to be one of them. Then everybody was giving birth to children and riding Jeeps, being financially blessed too. Each time good news came my way of the blessings of God to this or to that brother or sister, a twine of envy twisted my heart in its surging strength, steeping it all in shame of depression. This was immediately followed by pangs of pains and shame and anger against myself for the realisation that the possibility to envy or to resent was still deeply seated in the depth of my soul; evil was still present with me. And I was in a double jeopardy. I did not want to envy, yet I could not help it; the emotion always ran ahead of me before I could control it. Again, I was ashamed that I could still envy.

              The priest learns to stand on the ground of the Cross of Christ. I am of God and have His  seed in me. I cannot envy because of Who is in me. But here is me caught in the whirlwind of emotion of envy. I acknowledge that this is me in reality. Now, I stand out off the ground of my self-goodness, self righteousness, which is a contemptible ground that You want to save me from. I stand on the ground of the Cross of Christ. I am not depending on myself but on the finished work of the Cross. I am looking away from self to declare that I do not have my own righteousness which is of the law but the righteousness which is of faith in Christ Jesus. This, Lord is my rest. I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live; the life that I now live I live by faith of the Son of God who loves me and gave Himself to me. By the Cross I overcome the spirit of envy and live above envy…

           Over the years, though I am still single with no child and no heavy financial presence, I truly, as I review the past, discover that I am truly more than a conqueror.  My heart has come to a place of stability that does not entertain fear or envy any more.

Now this is rest.

         In this position, the priest does not exact personal strength as he struggles with the rams and goats in the outer court. He has come to the throne of mercy and has learned grace. Abundance of grace is being ministered to him. He has come to completion as he lifts the nation, the church and situations before the throne of mercy. He has at last been built up to trust God for nations, peoples, the church of God and the heart of God rather than faith to get silver and gold. As a matter of fact, nowadays, it takes more conscious energy to believe God for silver and gold than for the things that bother the heart of God; he is now like Aaron with the names, and therefore, the burden of the children of Israel on his heart before the Lord in he Holy of Holy. He has almost forgotten himself in scheme of things; it is now all about God.

Lord Jesus we rest on the arms of what you have done and accomplished on the cross; we seek your heart more than any other times in our lives. Just as the harts pant after the water brook so do  our heart pant after you, oh Lord.

The History of the Life of the Priest of God (10)

     Job 1: 5 has been the point of our meditation this far, taking him, Job, as a kind of priest of the ages before the institution of the Mosaic priesthood. We are continuing with the history of the life of the priest of God in these days.

    We continue with this in Ezekiel 44: 17 – 18:

 When they enter the gates of the inner court, they are to wear linen clothes; they must not wear any woollen garment while ministering at the gates of the inner court or inside the temple…. They must not wear anything that makes them perspire.

        Rest, the Grand Finale of Grace

          Christ is seated at the right hand of God; He is inclusively our representative before the Lord. It means that we, including the Lord are both seated at the right hand of God (Ephesians 1: 6). The inner court is not a place of sweating; it is a place of rest. God swear in his word, “ … if they must enter into my rest…”  and then again in the 9^th verse of the same Hebrew chapter 4, “There remained therefore a rest [or the keeping of Sabbath] to the people of God.”

             The priest in his walk into the inner court, away from the people, begins the entering into rest, beginning from the “gates of the inner court.” He does not wear sweat-inducing clothes like woollen. This speaks strongly of grace. The priest does not struggle to be or to do anything; he learns to rest by faith on the arms of the Lord. Ringing in his ears is the Spirit’s injunction to “come boldly to the throne of grace to receive grace for needs (Hebrew 4: 16). In the location of the inner court, he is able to look back and is amazed at what God has done for him.

We were brought up to resist sin and sins. We know the bible says that he that is born of God does not commit sin because the seed of God is in him (1 John 3: 9). Yet we find certain habits, evils and hated thoughts struggling in us, in our hearts. So we despair and begin to wonder whether we were truly saved, thinking, If  I were saved, why do I still have these unrighteous tendencies?  We cry; we agonise and despair of ever living above the problem.

            In a world known for its stratification and competitions for the scarce resources of life, we find it easy to envy brothers  “more blessed ” than us because it is as if God is more favourably disposed to help them than us; we feel that this means they are closer to God than the rest of us. Imagine this scenario: we were both single sisters and prayed for husbands. God answered her prayers, but mine He did not hear. Years went by, many more sisters joined the marital bliss, as they call it and I was yet to be one of them. Then everybody was giving birth to children and riding Jeeps, being financially blessed too. Each time good news came my way of the blessings of God to this or to that brother or sister, a twine of envy twisted my heart in its surging strength. This was immediately followed by pangs of pains and shame and anger against myself for the realisation that the possibility to envy or to resent was still deeply seated in the depth of my soul; evil was still present with me. And I was in a double jeopardy. I did not want to envy, yet I could not help it; the emotion always ran ahead of me before I could control it. Again, I was ashamed that I could still envy.

              The priest learns to stand on the ground of the Cross of Christ. I am of God and have His  seed in me. I cannot envy because of Who is in me. But here is me caught in the whirlwind of emotion of envy. I acknowledge that this is me in reality. Now, I stand out off the ground of my self-goodness, self righteousness, which is a contemptible ground that You want to save me from. I stand on the ground of the Cross of Christ. I am not depending on myself but on the finished work of the Cross. I am looking away from self to declare that I do not have my own righteousness which is of the law but the righteousness which is of faith in Christ Jesus. This, Lord is my rest. I have been crucified with Christ, nevertheless, I live; the life that I now live I live by faith of the Son of God who loves me and gave Himseltf to me. By the Cross I overcome the spirit of envy and live above envy…

           Over the years, though I am still single with no child and no heavy financial presence, I truly, as I review the past, found that I am truly more than a conqueror.  My heart has come to a place of stability that does not fear or is envious any more. Now this is rest.

         In this position, the priest does not exact personal strength as he struggles with the rams and goats in the outer court. He has come to the throne of grace and have received mercy and has leaned rest. Abundance of grace is being ministered to him. He has come to completion as he lifts the nation, the church and situations before the throne of mercy.

Lord, we come boldly to the throne of grace and we obtain  mercy and we do find grace to help in this time of needs. We stand not on our own righteousness but on the righteousness which has been made good for us on the cross of Christ. We are able to live above all powers of the enemy. On the ground of that blood that speaks better things, we testify that we are able to do all things unto pleasing You who called us to the grace of your Son, Jesus Christ. Thank You Lord for making us unto Your priests and, even, kings.

 

                 

              

The History of the Life of the Priest of God (09)

Reading,Job 1: 5

The life of Job as one that deeply cared for humanity and therefore saw the necessity to stand between man and – between his children and – God set him apart uniquely among the families of the bible history. Scholars believe that Job was contemporaneous with the patriarch Abraham if not earlier than him. Apart from Noah, no biblical family history is this close in the breath of vision for an arbiter between man and God, until the coming of the Law. This tells us that from age to age, God has not been tired of revealing Himself to man, especially of those with listening ears and seeing eyes and willing hearts. As as an aside, Melchizedec was the priest of God to whom Abraham paid tithe and he was who blessed the patriarch. Melchizedec was a Canaanite. We shall not stay to attempt any exegesis here.

We continue our meditation in Job through Ezekiel.

 Ezekiel 44: 19:

 And when they go forth into the outer court, even unto the outer court to the people, they shall put off their garments wherein they ministered, and lay them in the holy chambers and shall put on other garments; and they shall not sanctify the people with their garments.

            The Amplified version gives us a better picture of what the Spirit is saying here.

 And when they shall go out into the outer court to the people, they shall put off their garments in which they ministered and lay them in the holy chambers… lest by contact of their garments with the people, they should consecrate (separate and set apart for holy use) such persons (unintentionally and unfittingly).

 The People must be able to look pass the priest to see God

           

              The priest of God is deep in himself and has the ability to keep the secrets between him and his God for what they are: secrets. He does not have to show how close he is to God or how God is to him. He needs not boast about his power with God to make the others tremble and fear him and thus grudgingly concede, by default, authority to him, as Paul says, “. . .so no one will think of me than is warranted by what I do or say” (2 Cor. 12: 6). The Apostle stood in clear danger of this possibility because of the abundance of revelations he received from God. To keep him from the possible danger of the hubris, an agent of Satan was allowed to buffet him with thorns in his flesh. (2 Corinthians 12:7 - 8 ). Through this he learned the amazing grace of God that can keep a man going in the face of infirmities, reproaches, necessities, persecutions and distresses.

          The priest learns, in his journey, to keep what is holy, truly holy. He keeps the deep nature of the divine in the holy chambers which are within him where the Lord lives – in the very depth of him. The  garments of divine characters are not superficial; they are not resident in the outside, but are the controlling and governmental forces within. He must not make the mistake of flaunting the deep things of God any how. The glory of the presence of God was too great on Moses that he had to put a veil over his face to reduce the glare of the glorious radiance from his face. In the New Testament, this veil became a nuisance to the people to see what God was doing and the new thing that superseded the Law that was among them (2 Cor 3 : 15). The exceptional presence of the Lord with the priest must not become a distraction. He must learn to step out of the way.

        Some of God’s ministers project themselves to the people. When the people begin to focus on the servant and the stage-crafts and mannerisms on the pulpit, it is time to pause and take stock. When the intellectual grandeur of the minister begins to bob up in the water of the messages, it is time to allow the Lord to purge.

           We must not be unduly ordained, but must be allowed to go through the dealings of God in making us ministers. Apostle Paul writes to Timothy not to lay hands suddenly on any one. In other words, do not suddenly consecrate or unfittingly ordain someone. The church has gone against the grain of this truth and we reap the whirlwind. Any educated man and who happens to be an elite easily becomes a pastor. Some go to bible school. The priest has learned that he must allow for time and the word to mature a person before he can lay hand on him.

           The priest does not appear to the people just as he does with regards to the presence of the Lord or else, he will mistakenly consecrate many men unfit. He therefore follows the counsels of Christ strictly: cast not your pearls before swine. Failing to meet with this instruction, the church has produced assemblies of mass psychology: a great dosage of Napoleon Hill and a little bible mixed into it. Today, if Pa Hagin were around, he would disown so many of us on the way we have taken his teachings on faith and distorted it. Many have taken these and used them for other purposes other than divine intentions.

                                               The path of the priest

The path of the priest leads through personal secret dealings of God which is made peculiar to the individual priest. And it must be for him alone to walk by and must be used as a generalised teachings for the body. A woman, related as a story by Pa Hagin, heard a preacher saying that God spoke to him. She went to pray that God should also speak to her. She was strong on this that an evil spirit obliged her. The problem was that she did not hear the preacher out to know exactly how God spoke to him and whether He would so speak to her, AUDIBLY.

Lord, guide us through this time that we may know how to behave ourselves in your house which is the ground, the stay and pillar of truth. May we keep ourselves strictly for you and not be tempted to compete for authority and showoff-ism. We pray that you will be clearly seen. Lord, may you increase in your Church while our individualism decrease; as you increase, may there be less of us. Thank you for hearing us.

          The History of The Life of God’s Priest (08)

The history of the life of the priest of God is inexhaustible. It is a life better lived than imagined or learned about. The priestly acts were encountered in Job. He was a man in love with God and was, as in a living priest, very sensitive to the possibilities of his many children going into a life of disobedience. He was a priest to the family (Job1:5).

             God as the priest’s possession

      Ezekiel 44:28 I am to be the only inheritance the priests have. You are to give them no possession in Israel; i will be their possession.

                 The priest knows one thing which the people – the others not in the priesthood – are not privy to. He is aware that the raison d'etre of life is possessing God. He knows God as the centre of his desire and pursuit. He shares the same vision with Abraham. The history of the life of the priest of God, therefore, is full of irresistible movements from one place to the other. When he thinks he has finally arrived and come to rest, he sees that there is still much of God left to possess. So off he goes again. The priest has come to know that there is no finality in the matter of possessing God. He has come to find out that in all eternity he will still be learning God through his High Priest, the Lord Jesus, through whom he came into the priestly life.

            The people’s life is centred around pursuing things just like the world; the priest’s is centred around the nature of God and pleasing Him. While the people are busy throwing up “visions” to run after, the priest is moving towards God.

                  Found faithful

            The priest's walk towards God has a full effect of making him to be faithful and incapacitating him from going away from God. This can be seen in Zadok, the priest of God. Zadok was found faithful and he found it impossible to follow the general run of  people, Israel, to go away from God (Ezekiel 44: 15 - 16). It is expected, Paul writes, in steward that he should be found faithful (1 Corinthians 4: 1).  It is the faithfulness of the priests that brings him constantly forward to the holy of holies for fellowship and ministration to God. This is not talking of standing behind a pulpit. It is about minding the heart of God, being concerned that the will of God is fulfilled. This revelation of the mind of God comes through possessive ministering to God.  “….while they ministered to God…” (Acts13: 1). The faithful heart is it that ministers to God. He cannot depart from God like the others; he simply does not have the ability. As a matter of fact it does not cross his mind to depart from God, no matter how justifiable.

Such degree of commitment is found today in the Orient where an organisation violently against Christ and those that belong to Him carves a kingdom for itself which it calls Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, ISIS. It slaughters and kills and dehumanises everyone that has the Testimony of Christ. A new dimension to this in the recent time is to slitter the throats of their victims and drain the blood into a basin. They are thrilled to see this. They are gone beyond the human grace to consider a child or a woman. Yet, these great people, the saints, these priests of God, hold on to their faith in Christ.

           The priests as teachers and judges

                By the trajectory of the course of the history of their lives, the priests teach “my people the difference between the holy and the profane, and cause them to discern between the the unclean and the clean” (Ezekiel 44:23). The priest has travelled far with God and so has come to be partaker of divine nature ; he has come to the knowledge of “very great and precious promises” (1 Peter 1: 3 – 4). He has tread the path of the High Priest of his soul Who, after living before God for thirty years, had the divine approval as God testified of Him: “This is my beloved Son in whom I am well pleased.” Three years down the course of this life, God spoke again: “This is my beloved Son, hear ye him.” The meaning of these is that this one has come to fully represent God and God is directing our attention to this representative of His. He has the capacity to teach the very life of God, not necessarily by the words of mouth, but by his life; he has the capacity to deliver the true judgment of God. He has become, not only a teacher, but a judge. Now a judge is a product of experiences and wisdom acquired over ages.

             That was Jesus Christ; that is the priest of God today.

Lord, in this season, we receive grace and find mercy and favour to come to the full possession of the Godhead. We pray the Holy Spirit inspired prayer as we bow our knees before the Father from whom his whole family in heaven and on earth derives its name and pray that out of your glorious riches you he may strengthen us with power through your Spirit in our inner being or man, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith. And we pray that we, being rooted and established or grounded in love, may have power together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep the love of Christ, and to know his love that surpasses knowledge – that we may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

 The Life History Of The Priest Of God (07).

           Long before the institution of the priesthood, God had always had His priests who appeared and functioned in various forms. One of the priests was Job who was fond of making all forms of sacrifices for his children ( Job 1:5).

          We are continuing with our meditation of this special breed of mankind who is so important to God. As a matter of fact, God is doing everything within the confine of His justice to raise this specie of man and He has been at at it, raising so many all through the millennial and He is still at it in our age.

     Leveticus 8

  30 And Moses took of the anointing oil, and of the blood which was upon the altar, and sprinkled it upon Aaron, and upon his garments . . .

31 And Moses said to Aaron…, Boil the flesh at the door of the tabernacle…:and there with the bread that is the basket of consecrations…

           32 And that which remaineth of the flesh and of the bread shall ye burn with fire.

33 And ye shall not go out of the door of the tabernacle in seven days…: for seven days shall he consecrate you.

 The anointing oil in our passage is a type of the Holy Spirit.

   The blood on the altar is the type of the blood shed from the foundation of the world, the blood of the Lamb that took away the sin of the world; it is the blood of the Lord Jesus.

 The history this far of the priest is about the consecration or the ordination of the priest.

 The oil-sprinkled garments of the priest are the inwrought divine characters into the priest by the Lord. This consecration in its grand finalis is done indoors of the tabernacle.

  The sprinkling of the garments with the anointing and the blood on the altar ass well as eating of the cooked meat and bread in the tabernacle and remaining indoors of the consecrated priest for for seven days are interwoven in significance. The eating of cooked meat and bread signifies eating the flesh and body of the Lord Jesus Christ. This is done in the place of listening and prayers. The tabernacle – this place of waiting and eating for seven days – is the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ. He once said, upon the confession made by Peter, that He would build His Church and the gates of hell would not prevail against it. Remaining behind in the tabernacle speaks of absolute commitment to only the heart of God; it means being shut away from other altars of other gods; it speaks of of our having lost grips of other desires, other meat, other life or offerings and other services to any other gods.

             Seven, in scriptures, means  completion or perfection. Perfection, in this instance means that no further improvement can be done on the perfected thing. Nothing supersedes this completion. The Church is it that completes Christ ( the fullness of Christ);it is the place of completion. There we eat and eat without being gorged, but ably convert the meat to life. What we eat in the church is the word of God. Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word from the mouth of God. We eat the word of life… until we come to completion, to perfection. Then the history of the life of the priest has just started.

           The church is where the Lord meets with His people, or with a person. It is the place of operation of them that are coming to or have come to fullness of the knowledge of Christ. There are children as well as kids in this church, but the house is so ordered that the priests or sons are able, by the virtue of their priestly ministration and life, to carry or move the whole house forward – the same way the priests in the wilderness were able to sustain the tempo of the sound of the music of the presence of  God though majority of the members were children and kids who could not defferentiate their right hand from their left. Yet, no one was feeble among them.  

            The church is not an organisation superbly done to attract us; it is, first the person, the place of the expression of the kingdom of God; it is of the Lord Jesus reigning, right now, not in the future or after escaping to heaven through the rapture, in  the midst of His enemies.  Unrighteousness is His enemy. Unbelieve is. Death is His is enemy and so is flesh, the living according to the principles of self. Everything anti-divine in nature is His is enemy. The love of other life other than God’s is an enemy.

           Now, whatever is it that can respond to human intelligence and knowledge, cannot be described as God’s enemy. Actually, God’s enemies are bunched up in the soul of man. If a thing or situation or problem can be ruled over or overcome by the exercise of the will or intelligence of the ordinary man – ordinary, in this sense as not being helped by supernatural ability of God in His Son – then it is not God’s enemy.

         “ ….and of the blood which was upon the altar, and sprinkled upon…” verse 30. The writer of Hebrew, in chapter 12, speaks of how the church has come to spiritual Mount Zion…. And in verse 24: And to Jesus…, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. The first human blood to be shed was Abel’s; the blood that was shed from the eternal, Christ’s. the sprinkling of the blood from the altar is a type of the blood of the Lord Jesus that covers sins, satisfies divine justice of the mind of God and brings to fellowship with God. The blood is continually offered and ministered today in the church of Christ for remission for sins, satisfaction of divine justice and healing. As the church perfects her fellowship with God through the sprinkling blood, the members have fellowship with one another, “and the blood of Jesus [speaking, appealing] Christ, His Son cleanseth us from all sins” (1 John 1:8).

             The cleansing here is different from the first cleansing  at the point of believing. This comes from being in fellowship with the church in hearing, feasting upon the Word of God. In the fellowship, there are revelations from the throne of mercy; the heart is exposed for what it is. Rather than bring despair, this brings us to a place of confessing our exposed sins, thus receiving cleansing. The revelations are forms of sprinkling blood from the altar. As we are being cleansed, the course of the history of our life as the priests of God is deepened.

      This is the path and part of the history of God’s priest.

Lord, once again we give you praise and thanks for your wisdom in making the Christ the head of the Church,  the pillar and ground of Truth. By the Church, the Lord reigns on the earth; the Church is the Body, His fullness on the earth by which the whole world and the heaven are being ruled today. The Church is Christ on earth in all His glory which He had with the Father before the world began. We pray that You will raise Your Church again and bring her to fullness. The Church is in fullness when all of Christ can be seen in her; the believers were called Christians first in Antioch. Lord, beyond the supernatural interventions, the people observed that these people, the believers, were living by another Spirit different from the one the world had always known. May You revive your Church in so much so that this generation will see and say , Of a truth, this is the Christ on earth.

                         The Life History Of The Priest Of God (06)

Job 1: 5 gives us the thought of the priest of God. The man Jod had a measure of the fullness of the priest of God.

              We continue our meditations on this from Leveticus 8,

           verse 27: He put these on the hands of Aaron…. As wave offering…        

                                

                                      Wave Offering

                       

               "Moses removed the vital organs of the liver, fat tail, the kidneys. Out of the basket of bread before the Lord, he took cake of bread made with oil, and a wafer and put these on the fat portion and the right thigh of the ram in the hands of Aaron…. Who waved them before the Lord “as wave offering.”

            In the course of ministration of peace or fellowship offering before the Lord, the offerer by himself removed and brought the fat and breast to the priest. The offerer waved these before the Lord as wave offering. The priest would then burn the fat before the Lord, but the breast belonged to him as the officiating priest. It was the Lord offering this potion to the priest by Himself. “From the fellowship offerings of Israelites I have taken the breast that is waved and the thigh that is presented and have given them to Aaron the priest…” (Leveticus 7: 34).

             As the priest ministers to God on the behalf of the people, God’s nature begins to rob off on him in turn; parts of the glory of the offering returns to him. No one knows this better than our High Priest, Jesus Christ. He knew and was able to shift through all degrees and shades of glories. Satan offered him his best, but the Lord would not fall for it. He desired the ultimate. Certainly, the Lord did not dispute what the devil showed him as  not being glorious. but He knew it as the glory which the devil has control of. It has its own measure of glory (Mathew 4: 9). Of degrees of glory, let us tick off some: political power, super-intellectual prowess, material wealth, modern inventions, gift and grace of having children, spirit-gifts, military exploits and fame.

          The church is not left out of the glory-pursuit. The present glory is the definition of glory to the church. In many Pentecostal mega-churches, the pastors have ways of making the overhead human boss to send them to the branches where the elite worship, where you can impress the worshipers with erudity and where there is all the possibility that you will be financially blessed. This reminds one of Simon, the sorcerer of Samaria who, after conversion to Christ tried to bribe Peter into giving him the power to bless others with the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

             There is a vast practice, today, another form of simony in the church. A member is well-behaved so that he may be recommended to become a pastor or to become the minister of the gospel; pastor or minister of the gospel in the church is well-behaved so as to be sent to a money-spinning branch of the ministry. Being  called into the ministry is so rash and rampant; it is now a vocation that anybody can go into. We study for the ministry as we do for this or that profession in school. And my, are we not in the days when ministry “is a soft sell”! Many go into the ministry because it is a mean of self-glorification. Even when we pray that God will honour Himself by using us to perform wonders and signs, we know who we desire to be honoured; it is not truly God but us. The gospel preaching is a fast lane to fame.

                Both the first Adam and the last saw the glory prepared for them. Both saw immortality in the promise laid before them. But, the first would rather choose the one that was able to gratify his immediate desires, the glory that was even later denied him. Jesus deliberate chose the path of sufferings to get to the true glory; Adam sighted a quick path that offered no suffering of tutelage under God. Adam failed to link to the eternal thought of God in creation; Jesus saw the very heart of the Father in creation and went on to satisfy that longing.

          Christ is the wave offering to God; God is the wave offering to Christ. This looks awkward but true. The wave offering means dedication, a given of self; it comes of what is called fellowship or peace offering; it is fellowship-seeking offering. And the Lord Jesus was so conscious of this. He knew the eternal mind of God in creation and knew the glory God designed for man to walk into. He was aware of how th heart of the Father yearned for fellowship with like nature. Angels? Sorry, angels are not for immortality! But man!

              The successful offering of God to man is glory; the offering of man to God is the glory of fellowship. In John 17: 4, Jesus began to say, “I have glorified thee on the earth…. And, now, O Father , glorify thou me  with thine self with the glory which I have with thee before the world was.” What is the purpose of this system of sacrifices and tabernacles and the rules? I t is to achieve glory. Friends, God is the glory. Glorify thou me, said the Lord, with thineself… it is called the inheritance of God. The heaven is not as glorious as God Himself; He has made man this glory to inherit, to live in, with and by; He has offered to dwell among men in fellowship. This, friend is the glory of God.

           We write this in a moment of excruciating pains and, as it would seem to our natural self, crushing defeat. But we have by faith link up with those things that cannot be seen; they are said to be eternal. We desire to have the testimony of them who are dead, despising, the glory of this world. We will rather go through the strait life for the inheritance of God – the wave offering; the offering God waves back or gives back to man; the offering  man waves to God.

         This is the eternal historical path of the priest of God.

Lord, we thank you for the Lord Jesus who has made the eternal thought of the Father to come to fullness through the Body of Christ, the Church. The Church, as His body, is the testimony of the Lord on the earth today and forever. We are the offering unto God through our Lord Jesus, the wave offering. Of course Lord, you were offered for us and we acknowledge this. We pray that more of you will rub off on us, Lord; may this consciousness of the fullness of your thought realisable in your Son continue to be with us and in us.