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.