Numbers 18

‘. . .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.’