Re-Empowering God's People

Over the last few months I have been personally challenged by the study of the New Testament in regards to who we are as the Body of Christ and the Priesthood of Believers.

According to the New Testament, the Body of Christ was empowered to minister to one another by the Holy Spirit. Every baptized believer in Christ was "in the ministry" and capable of planting a church, baptizing new believers, and teaching the Gospel.

Today, only trained professionals with seminary degrees are allowed, or expected, to start churches, baptize new believers, teach the Gospel or minister to the Body.

By complicating the message and placing obstacles in the way, the average follower of Christ today is not empowered to actually behave like a member of the priesthood of believers, nor are they expected to.

A few weeks ago I attended an evening service where a well-known travelling preacher exhorted us all to be more active in sharing our faith. He told us why it was important. He made us feel inadequate for failing to be more evangelistic. He prayed for us to become more active in our faith. But what he didn’t do was to affirm our identity as priests in the Kingdom of God. It was insanity: To berate us all for not behaving as members of the priesthood while denying the priesthood every step of the way.

For us to fully become the people God made us to be, we have to understand who we were made to be. For us to be the New Testament church, we have to embrace our identity as living stones, living sacrifices, and priests of the Kingdom.

Most of us really have no idea what it really means to be one of the priesthood of believers. We’ve never heard it taught, or preached and certainly we’ve never seen it modeled for us.

Lately I’ve been trying to really practice the presence of the indwelling Holy Spirit. The reality that God is as much with me, even within me, as He is when I am in the act of corporate worship or prayer is powerful. God is here with me now. His Spirit is alive within me. His voice is whispering to my heart. His power to love and heal and forgive and transform lives is as close as my own fingertip. What does that mean? How does that affect my interactions with my co-workers, my neighbors, my children, my wife?

I fear that the Church today has largely forgotten who she is. We do not live daily in the awareness of God’s empowering presence. We do not think of ourselves as priests. We do not behave as if our lives are living sacrifices to Christ. I include myself in this group, by the way. I know I need to fully grasp who I am in Christ and to start living every single day with a greater awareness of my identity.

I believe it is vitally important for us to become the empowered Body of believers who behave as a Spirit-enabled priesthood.

According to Revelation, our identity in the priesthood of believers is part of what Jesus accomplished for us on the cross:

"You (Jesus) are worthy to take the scroll
and to open its seals,
because you were slain,
and with your blood you purchased men for God
from every tribe and language and people and nation.
You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God,
and they will reign on the earth." - Revelations 5:9-10

From now on I intend to center my life on the practice of the presence, the reality of the priesthood and the daily, living sacrifice of my life to Christ. After calling myself a Christian for nearly 34 years, I think it’s about time.
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