SERVICE A GIFT

‘. . .I have given your priest’s office unto you as a service of gift.’—NUM. xviii. 7.

All Christians are priests—to offer sacrifices, alms, especially prayers; to make God known to men.

I. Our priesthood is a gift of God’s love.

We are apt to think of our duties as burdensome. They are an honour and a mark of God’s grace.

1. They are His gift—

(a) The power to do. All capacities and possessions from Him.

(b) The wish to do. ‘Worketh in you to will.’

(c) The right to do, through Christ.

2. They are a blessing.

(a) Note the good effects on ourselves—the increase of fellowship with Him, the strengthening of all holy desires.

(b) The future benefits. Apply this to prayer and to effort on behalf of our fellow-men.

II. Our priesthood is to be done as a service—under a sense of obligation to a master, with diligence (an [Greek: ergon], not a [Greek: parergon]).

III. Our priesthood is to be done as a gift to God—to be done joyfully, giving ourselves back to Him: ‘Yield yourselves unto God’—‘your reasonable service.’

Then only do we really possess ourselves, and ‘all things are ours, for we are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.’