Made Priests to God

What did your week really consist of?

For many of us it was bills, laundry, a commute, and a shift nobody thanked us for. It is hard to feel called by God while you are wiping down a counter, and it is easy to decide quietly that the important lives are being lived somewhere else, by other people.

John is writing to seven churches that were under real pressure, and he calls himself their "companion in tribulation." The title he gives them comes with its price in the same sentence: "Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father." Those words reach back to Mount Sinai, where God told a nation of former slaves, "ye shall be unto me a kingdom of priests." Now the same title is given to ordinary churches in the province of Asia, full of tradesmen, shopkeepers and slaves.

"Priest" is not a decoration. Priests worked. Their job was to stand between God and the people and carry the people's names in to Him. Aaron wore the names of Israel's tribes over his heart when he went into the holy place. That work was done mostly out of sight, because nobody watched the priest in the holy place. It was plain, repeated work, and that is exactly why it fits a week made of bills and laundry. You can carry people's names to God at the counter and on the commute.

Notice where the sentence ends: "to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen." Christ hands out the crowns, and He keeps the glory. That is the only way a title like this is safe to hold.

So the title is plainer than it sounds, and it is truly yours. Christ loved you, freed you from your sins by His own blood, and made you a priest, and that is why work done for Him unseen still counts. Whether anyone sees it has never decided whether it mattered.

Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year two reading for day 362 is The Bruised Reed (Isaiah 42:3).

All 365 readings in Daily Manna