Continue in God’s presence.

 

Saturday, January 6, 2024


Psalm 18

Isaiah 66:18-24

Ephesians 4:1-16


Continue in God’s presence.


Earlier in this week, we read in Ephesians about this wild thing God is doing, opening up the family of believers from the people of Israel to include people of every nation. Now Isaiah tells us the same thing: the distant coasts, where they have never heard of God’s fame nor seen His glory, will be told of the good news of Jesus. Out of these places God will take priests and Levites.


We should feel very comfortable with the idea of God calling people out of other places – that includes us, and two and half thousand years after Isaiah’s prophecy, we can see how this part definitely came true.


When it comes to priests, that gets a little more tough to chew on. Certainly we have an order of ordained people that we call priests, but our modern version is nothing like what Isaiah had in mind. These are men in the order of Aaron and his sons, who would go into the Temple to offer sacrifices on behalf of the people. Jesus finished the sacrificial system, so our modern version of priests don’t fit into that category so easily.


But when it comes to Levites, things really start to stretch the limits of our modern comprehension. The Levites were the purest of the pure, men called to such a high standard of holiness their lives were bound in every way by the Law of God. And yet, God has said through Isaiah that priests and Levites will be called from all over the world.


The core part of the role of the ancient priests was to take the needs of the people to God. This is a right and a responsibility of every Christian today. God has called all of us to wash in the blood of Jesus and stand before the throne of glory, giving themselves as a link between heaven and earth. We do this every day in our prayers and in our actions. In the same way, the core responsibility of the Levites, to be holy as God is holy, is a part which every Christian plays, too.


And so we faithful people of God (for all our foibles, failings and dysfunction) are people drawn from all over the world, to stand in the presence of God on behalf of all creation, and to be holy as God is holy. This is our joy, and the gift of the Lord Jesus. And the best bit about it all is that God promises that our joy in this work will be forever: we will continue in God’s presence.

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