THE HIGH PRIEST OF GRACE

THE HIGH PRIEST OF GRACE

                As children we had our chores and duties to perform as a part of being a family. These chores, such as making the bed, straightening up our rooms, helping take out the trash and mowing the lawn and such were taught to us because we were family and family works together for the good of the whole.

                This upbringing would shape and build us into mature adults that would maintain some sort of responsibility and order in our lives. But as adults, those little chores that seemed so big back then, became but a small part of a much bigger life of responsibility and maturity. If we have been raised well at home, then we will also become a contributing part of our church family as well… and, of course on the job, we will be among those whom the employer can count on to get the job done. In fact, those who see what needs to be done and do it end up becoming the managers of those who lack the concept and vision of team effort.

                Likewise God’s Law like a school master, or parent or tutor, is given to train us up in the way we should go so that when we are born again and we graduate from the kinder training of Law, we will not abandon what we have learned in the past, but we will move into a much greater arena of maturity.

                This arena of maturity requires a new High Priesthood. The Law has been our tutor to lead us to Christ. It has trained us how to live righteously, or rightly, but God in looking at His goals for us, knows that in our maturity we need to do much more than just make the bed and clean our rooms. He wants to form us into the mature image of Christ and for this we need to enter into the Melchizedek Priesthood.

                Under the Melchizedek Priesthood we move from simple Law keeping, to partaking of the Body and Blood of Christ and living by His Holy Spirit. As such we move beyond the letter of the Law to the spirit of the Law. We become temples of the Holy Spirit and now we are learning how to operate under the Lordship of Jesus Christ who operates in us internally, rather than externally.

                This does not break the laws we learned as children, but it does operate at a more mature level for now instead of simply keeping the rules we learned, we are walking in the footsteps of Christ, living by His Spirit, moving beyond the immaturity of self to embrace the needs of others… from our spouses, to our children, to our co- workers, to our fellow members in the Body of Christ… maturity can be seen in giving rather than taking… in serving one another… looking beyond the “Me” to the bigger picture of the Body of Christ where we as the various organs, or living stones are being fitted together by the Holy Spirit into a corporate temple of God.

                Peter said it like this: “And coming to Him as to a living stone, rejected by men but choice and precious in the sight of God you also as living stones are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.” 1 Peter 2:4, 5

                Paul said it like this: “So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow-citizens with the saints and are of God’s household, having been built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the corner stone, growing into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit.” Ephesians 2:19-22.

                If the church as a whole is losing ground today it may be largely due to the fact that people are leaving the small churches behind and flocking to mega churches to be wowed and entertained. Maturity in the Body of Christ is not being taught any longer in many places. So people end up with a glut of information but a vacuum of experience as members of Christ’s body.

                If you are serious about maturing in the Lord, go to a smaller Bible believing God fearing family church and become a part of the Body. Become a contributing organ. Go there not only to receive, but to give. Go there not just to make yourself happy, but someone else happy too. Learn how to pray for other people’s needs as well as your own.

                We often think in terms of finding the right church with just the right doctrine, where we can park ourselves and wait for Jesus to come. We have become a flock of sheep that no longer produces lambs. We want our hired shepherd to do it all, but shepherds don’t produce lambs… sheep do.

                “I pray that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints. And what is the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe. These are in accordance with the working of the strength of His might which He brought about in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places far above all rule and authority and power and dominion and every name that is named not only in this age but also in the one to come. And He put all things in subjection under His feet and gave Him as head over all things to the church which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.” Ephesians 1:18-23

                Did you ever stop to think that God formed the church to be more than a repository of doctrines and rules made for children? Did you ever stop to think that God’s picture of maturity has everything to do with our becoming living stones, vital organs in His Body as we are together being formed into the likeness of Jesus Christ? Did you ever stop to think that this kind of maturity cannot be attained by living unto ourselves?

                We become disgusted with church because it is full of spiritually immature people. So we say,      “I’ll just stay home and worship God myself in the way I want to worship.” but in doing so, we are missing the point.

                Groucho Marx once said: “I wouldn’t want to belong to any club that would let me in.”

                God is calling us to maturity in these last days. He is doing it both personally and corporately. Yes we are living stones, but we are also being fitted together into a temple of God and a part of our maturing process is to stop judging people and start helping and encouraging them. If you want your church to become more mature then begin to model maturity… model it by becoming a living and active stone, rather than a mere bench warmer.

                Yesterday a group of us from our church went to a nursing home and sang a bunch of good old Gospel songs for them and with them. Oh the sweetness of those little old people was a thing to experience as they clapped their hands and tapped their toes along with the music and sang. Their smiles were so wonderful and the woman in charge told us afterwards that this was the most response many of them had shown for years. Even when many of life’s memories have been forgotten, people will still remember the gospel songs they grew up with.

                Before we sang I went around to each of the people and shook hands with them and greeted them and chit chatted with them, as if each one of them was my own grandparent and I came away from there realizing that I had received the greater blessing. All of us felt that way when we left.

                Maturity is in giving. Isn’t it interesting that the organs of our bodies are so vital that we can’t live without them and yet, the organs cannot live without the body either?

                Paul summed it up by saying that God gave us apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers for the equipping of the saints for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

                Like I said earlier, many people look for a church with just the right set of doctrines and then they park there and wait for Jesus to come. They don’t realize that what God really wants for us is to become living stones… living organs in His Body. The same is true of those who flock to the mega churches to be entertained and to come and go with no further obligation. They too miss the whole point of church. We are members of the body of Christ and we are being fitted together into a dwelling place for Christ and in the process we are becoming like Him. Loving and serving one another… giving rather than just taking.

                There may come a time when we will be forced out of our churches, our buildings burned or turned into brothels and our pastors and members cast into prison or worse. After all, this is happening in many places in the world right now. But until that time comes… our maturity is being formed in the Body as we are individually and corporately being fitted together into a temple of God.

                So why did I call this article “The High Priesthood of Grace?” It is because the Melchizedek Priesthood is a priesthood for making Christians mature. Adults have moved beyond the simple chores and rules of childhood to come into the maturity of the image of Christ as we walk in Spirit and in Truth. Grace is the power of God to accomplish this maturity in our lives as we surrender our lives to Him moment by moment. The Holy Spirit is drawing us to maturity and that maturity will look like Jesus who is the Head of His Body.

                This is why Jesus returned to heaven to become our High Priest after the order of Melchizedek and not after the order of the Levites. That priesthood can only bring you to the foot of the Cross. It cannot take you beyond that. So if we are to move on to maturity, we must live by the powers inherent in the Melchizedek Priesthood.

                The Apostle John threw down the gauntlet by saying: “For the law was given through Moses, grace and truth were realized through Jesus Christ. Here we see a transition from the immaturity of law keeping, to moving into the maturity of adulthood in Christ. for what the Law could not do, weak as it was through the flesh, God did, sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh and as an offering for sin, He condemned sin in the flesh in order that the requirement of the Law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” Romans 8:3, 4

                This is the ministry of the Melchizedek Priesthood of Christ and this is the maturity that Jesus is now seeking to produce in us by His grace so that we will be prepared to reign with Him.