But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. (1 Peter 2:9, NIV)
Yesterday, we talked of one of the strong leader types that God raised up among his people: kings. Benevolent, generous kings, we found, impact their kingdoms and their subjects with widespread good.
But kings were a cultural allowance made by the Lord (see 1 Samuel 8). The leaders he had established through Moses were priests, meant to bring offerings to the Lord on behalf of the people. They were go-betweens, spiritual liaisons, charged to live set apart to the Lord, with special demands on their character and actions.
Unfortunately, priests were no more perfect than kings. Indeed, it was the wickedness of Samuel’s sons that led the elders to ask for a king in the first place. But their calling never changed. When the prophets later came forth, they did not hold back in urging even the priests to return to the Lord. God’s eyes were tired of looking on bad religion, and he was grieved.
This is a very short history lesson, but it gives us a well-rounded path to considering how it could possibly be true that we who believe are identified by the Holy Spirit through Peter as “chosen,” “royal priests,” “holy,” and “special.” My golf game alone—in skill and in attitude—disproves most of that!
God has completely changed us, making us to be the kind of people we would never call ourselves.Yet the words are there in printer’s black and white, staring us in the face. The ensuing verse describes our salvation: “Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.” This is the rationale Peter used to declare us to be all those wonderful things, when we know full well that we are mistake-ridden numbskulls too much of the time. God has completely changed us, making us to be the kind of people we would never call ourselves. So let’s look more closely at what his words say to us.
First, we are chosen. Our place among God’s people is not an accident or the best kind of cosmic good luck. God has intentionally made us his.
Second, we are a royal priesthood. This puts us in the role of go-betweens, those pointing the way to God. Yes, this is a high calling, probably our highest. We do not want to shun this responsibility like Samuel’s wicked sons. But if we come to it humbly, we are coming to it well—tentative, perhaps, but upheld by the Lord.
Third, we are holy. This is the reality of being set apart, made different by the Spirit’s work in us and testifying to an everlasting life of abundance in Christ.
Finally, we are “God’s special possession.” God truly loves us. He will not let us go. And when we trust these truths, we see how it is that we can stand firmly as chosen ones, royal priests, and a holy nation.
I don’t mean to kill tradition, but the priest is not the man behind the confessional screen. Rather, I mean to go back to a truth that’s older still: You are a priest, anointed by God, to declare his praises back into the darkness from which you were saved, that others may hear your call and come into the wonderful light with you.
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Jeff Hopper
July 7, 2020
Copyright 2020 Links Players International
The Links Daily Devotional appears Monday-Friday at www.linksplayers.com.
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