What Does It Mean: You Are A Priest Of God?

Wherefore laying aside all malice, 
 and all guile, and hypocrisies, and
envies, and ll evil speakings, as new
born babes, desire the sincere milk
of the word, that ye may grow thereby:
if so be ye have tasted that the Lord
is gracious. To whom coming, as unto 
a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, 
but chosen of God, and precious, ye also,
as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, 
an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual
sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

IPeter 2:1-5

     When a person come to believe in Jesus Christ and commits their lives to Him they are to put away those former things that kept them apart from God. The are not to cause evil, to speak evil, to be crafty, insidiously cunning, to be deceptive even if done artfully. To be insidious is to be one who intends entrap another, to operate inconspicuously so that this causes grave effect.    

The former things of life are to be put away forever and then you are to be committed to Jesus Christ. As a new Christian you are a babe in Jesus Christ. As a babe you do not need meat for if offered you would reject it for you desire to have milk which you then could digest. But as you grow you are to transfer you desire for milk to things that are meaty. This is possible if you have "tasted the Lord." If you taste Him you will find that it is good and that He is gracious. Jesus Christ is the "living stone," and as a living stone, even though "disallowed by men," has chosen you to also be "living stones." As a "living stone" you are solid in your faith and as one that is and has the living word of God in you are able to dispense this life giving message about the One and True Living Stone, Jesus Christ.   

     This building up of you into living stones is so that you as now a priest of God will offer acceptable sacrifices to God. To become a priest of God is so that you have some prominence in the Church, no, it is so that you as one of His priests will do the work that He commanded for His children to do: to spread the Gospel. That Gospel is not to give "ear tickling" messages, no it is to show and lead a person to understand that they are a sinner and deserve death which they will receive when Jesus returns. They must be taught that only by receiving Jesus into their hearts and lives can they have offered to them and receive from Him everlasting life. It is believe in Jesus that one receives salvation: "Wherefore also it is contained in the scriptures, behold, I lay in Sion a chief corner stone, elect, precious: and he that believeth on Him shall not be confounded" (IPeter 2:6). 

     Yes, to believe on Jesus Christ goes against this world that, especially in this present day are doing all they can to remove Christianity from the face of the earth. Yes, this will cause you trouble, even persecution, trials, but there is only two sides to this coin: One side: life, the other side: death. The choice is yours: chose wisely!

The stone the builders rejected

    has become the capstone,

the LORD has done this, and it is

     marvelous in our eyes. This is

the day the LORD has made; let us 

    rejoice and be glad in it.

                       Psalm 118: 22-24

You are a priest of God: live it!

Richard L. Crumb