Perfect Relationship with God

ALL – Psalm 105:37-45
ALL – Proverbs 27:3
OT – Ezekiel 12:1-14:11
NT – Hebrews 7:1-17

Interesting passage for the day: And the Psalmist points this out when he says of Christ, “You are a priest forever with the rank of Melchizedek.” – Hebrews 7:17, The Living Bible

Thought: For most of us, our first thought when we think about Jesus isn’t, “Priest.” We might think Son of God. We might think King. We might think teacher. We might even think prophet. But priest?

What’s so important about priests, anyways?

Kings are important because they make sure that everyone follows God’s laws. Prophets are important because they speak for God and show people how to follow God’s laws (or sometimes/often warn people that they’re not following God and need to repent). Priests, though, stand between men and God as mediators who work to keep our relationship intact. Priests proclaim God’s blessings on His people, and priests offer sacrifices on behalf of the people to atone for sins. Priesthood is all about a wholehearted relationship with God.

Jesus could never have become a priest under the OT law. The priesthood was only for the descendants of Jacob’s son Levi. But it was vitally important that Jesus be a priest, right? After all, none of Levi’s descendants was able to bring humanity back into a good relationship with God. So we needed Jesus to be a priest so that we could finally reconcile with God after all our rebellion and sin.

And that’s why Hebrews takes the time to tell us that Jesus was a priest. Not a Levitical priest, but a priest in the order of Melchizedek. You’ll have to read Hebrews 7 to see what that’s all about, but essentially there was one priest in the book of Genesis who was a priest of God, and Abraham expressed his relationship to God partially through this priest. Abraham offered a tithe of his recent victory spoils to this priest, and Melchizedek proclaimed God’s blessings for Abraham. So there was an order of priests in the Old Testament that was not made up of Levi’s descendants, and Jesus was declared to be a priest—not in the typical group of priests, but a priest all the same.

And because Jesus is our great High Priest, we have a perfect relationship with God. We have a relationship with God where our sins are perfectly forgiven and cleansed. That had never happened before. Also, other priests could sin, and by their sin they could become a hindrance to God’s blessings for His people. But we have a relationship with God through our High Priest Jesus that guarantees every blessing God wants to bestow on us to come our way, because our perfect and sinless priest is never himself a hindrance to our relationship with God.

Jesus is our priest. And because He is, we need no other priests at all. Our relationship with God made perfect through Him.

Question: Where do you turn when you’re trying to straighten out your relationship with God? How can we do a better job of reminding one another that the full benefits of a perfect relationship with God are available to us through Jesus Christ alone?

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