Over the past few weeks my heart has been challenged about the reality of a consecrated life. A life totally given to God’s plan with no rights of its own. No person puts it better like Peter in 1 Pet 2:9-10. In this text we as believers are called a royal priesthood a people for Gods possession. This expression priesthood has Old testament connotations, it probably is an allusion to the Levitical priesthood. The Levitical priesthood lived to offer praises and sacrifices to God, to declare His graces to those who would have fallen and needed restoration.

What’s challenging for me about this picture is that the Levitical priesthood lost all rights to the world and God became their source more than anything else. The Levites had no natural possession in the promised land (Deut 18:2, Josh 13:14), these people were totally given for the service of the Lord. This tribe was a type and a shadow of the new testament believer as mentioned in 1 Pet 2:9-10 whose sole purpose is to live for the Lord and proclaim His excellencies.

The Levites had no natural plan they were kingdom minded, to serve God was their only vision and purpose for existence, God was their reward their inheritance. My heart is challenged, is this not what God asks of us in 1 Pet 2:9-10 to be priests for Him, to live to testify the reality of what Jesus did for us on the cross and not to be concerned with building our own lives and kingdoms but on the contrary to live for Him. Think about the Levites who lived to serve the Lord, their sole purpose and only purpose everyday was to serve the Lord. This same thought is echoed by Paul in 1 Cor 5:15, Rom 14:8 and especially in Acts 17:28. The Levites had their identity in God, outside of God’s plan they had nothing. I am challenged today as Christians we have our identity in and through the work of the cross of Christ in our lives, bringing us to be more like Christ. Outside of the cross I believe we have nothing, our lives find their meaning in and through the work of the cross. It is because of the cross and what God did for us through the cross that we live each day totally consecrated to our God. We have been called to declare the marvels of the cross, that is the sole purpose of our lives to live for Him, like the Levites.

Oh Lord help us to really become a priesthood, a people totally given to declaring and administering the graces of the cross of Christ. A people whose inheritance is in you and not in the things of this world. Lord only you can satisfy and in you we have our existence and purpose for living, consecrate our hearts for your priesthood Amen.