Our Destiny: Priests and Kings

On earth, people seek prestige. That is "of the flesh". Our heart desires to be "as God",  not more like God, which is noble and desirable. Indeed, being Christ-like is the disposition of the new creature after being born-again. Sanctification is being as much like Christ in the heart's desires as one can humanly be!

How is that disposition? Christ is a Servant. His service was his own life instead of ours. When Jesus made the ultimate sacrfice of his own blood, he served eternal life to all mankind. When we take communion with the bread and wine, we commemorate Jesus's service to mankind - his body and blood, both of which redeemed us. Just as Jesus served us, we are to serve God and others. The service we are to provide is love. It sounds so simple but love comes hard because all mankind are sinners. God loved sinners without reserve. As God, Jesus loved everyone. Think how difficult that was next time someone wrongs you!

Being a servant is meekness. Proud servants just don't serve well because being a servant diminishes their view of themselves, what the world calls "low self-esteem". Scripture says that no one hates their own flesh:

Eph 5:29 For no man ever yet hated his own flesh; but nourisheth and cherisheth it, even as the Lord the church...

Indeed, as self-imposed gods, we nourish and cherish ourselves. How much? As the Lord does the Church. The Church is the Lord's "bride". Hence, we love ourselves as much as the beautiful blushing bride we lust after to marry! The degree to which we love ourselves supersedes how much we love God, if there is love at all!  The esteem for themselves for most of mankind is that they think they can save themselves from ever perishing. Meekness is required for the new birth - realizing that we are not gods and have no power to save our precious selves!  God can! That spark of Light is what regenerates the old person into a new one.

Christians lose their self-induced god-ship. Rather than life all about us, it should be all about God and others. Thus, we quit serving the self, and begin to serve God and others. This is what Jesus called, the Greatest Commandment and the one like unto it. We love God with our heart. soul, and mind (Mat 22:36-40).  Meekness is spiritually the rebirth - when one turns away from self-pride and starts serving God. Meek people are faithful to God (the heart), allow our will to be God's will (the soul), and obey him willingly (our mind). Those characteristics make us good servants.

Many of us have seen movies where the meek faithful servant inherits a fortune upon his master's death as the spoiled and proud heirs are snubbed. Well, that's the Way of God also!  Meek Christians, and Christians must be meek, have a promise from the Master:

Mat 5:5 Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth.

That promise is to be fulfilled because as children of God who honor our Father we are adopted:

Rom 8:16 The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God: 17 And if children, then heirs; heirs of God, and joint-heirs with Christ; if so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together. 18  For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.

Us faithful servants are rewarded just as children of the Master, not at the Master's death but ours. Our reward as children of God is to be on the same footing as Christ, our adoptive brother.

Rom 8:22 For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. 23 And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body. 24 For we are saved by hope: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for?

Servanthood is taking up the cross of Jesus:

Mark 8:34 Whosoever will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. 

This is our greatest service to Jesus! Just as Simon the Cyrene bore Jesus's cross on the Via Dolorosa, we are to bear Jesus's cross on the narrow path to salvation. Walking the Way of Christ is our own Via Dolorosa - our own "way of grief". We pick up Jesus's cross and bear it with him. Simon could have been killed for helping this insurgent, or at least knouted! He denied his own self in favor of Jesus. Like Simon, we are to serve Jesus. Don't blame all the Jews for Simon was a Libyan Hebrew as we can tell from his name! 

Those who take up our own cross - servanthood to Christ, do that with meekness. Proud Christians are many but all too few are proud of Christ. It is the Christ in us which the world should see. Sadly, there is little meekness in most of his adoptive children. 

By the way: from whom did God adopt us? Mankind, although created by God, were emancipated by Him upon the original sin. We were given freedom to choose our master and father. By default, unless one is born-again, his father is the devil (John 8:44). The rebirth is walking away from the devil unto the arms of God. God adopts us when He emancipates us, by His authority, from the devil. He takes the proud person, convicts, and gives a new nature of meekness; at least that's how it should work. 

Thus, life consists of stages in the path to eternal life. At birth, we are created in sin, come to enjoy the pleasures of sin, choose to remain in sin or not, and if we choose correctly, live safely under the protection of God in hope just awaiting for the day of salvation. From birth to the rebirth, we are masters of our own domain, or so we think, but at the rebirth just as Jesus, we are born in a "manger", so to speak. The "manger" for us is realizing that the earth is not our home but someday we will live in a mansion:

John 14:1 Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. 2 In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you. 3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.

We serve but are not to be troubled by those who are cruel to servants. Christians indeed were, are, and will continue to be persecuted for Jesus's Namesake: 

Mat 5:10 Blessed are they which are persecuted for righteousness' sake: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. John 15:20 ...The servant is not greater than his lord. If they have persecuted me, they will also persecute you...

It's clear that we are to be servants to Christ, and like Jesus, we too will be persecuted. The reward is the Kingdom of Heaven, and there is where the meek receive their inheritance! On earth, with regeneration (born-again), we become royal priests of God, and serve Jesus (1 Pet 2:9). Hence, those with the hope of salvation immediately become royal priests whose role is to "dress and keep the Garden". "The Garden" is the presence of God. We were created by God to serve Him - to be His priests. When we're born-again as new creatures, just like the original Adam, we become royal priests to God. Sure, we will fail him because we are meek servants, but it is our willingness to serve which pleases the Master.

Then, sometime after our death, in addition to our priesthood we become kings as well:

Rev 1:6 And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

In eternity, we will live in a mansion with the King - sort of "Divine Caesar", and we become kings paying tribute to THE KING. Jesus Christ is "King of the Jews":

Mat 27:29 And when they had platted a crown of thorns, they put it upon his head, and a reed in his right hand: and they bowed the knee before him, and mocked him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews! 

Of course, Jesus was more than king of the Jews but King of Kings:

Rev 17:14 These (of the beast) shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.

To Jesus, every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord (Isa 45:23). In heaven, we will be one of those kings! Unlike even Saul who sought to be both king and priest, we shall be. Eschatologically speaking, the destiny of meek ones shall be even more than either Saul or David. Our priesthood and kingship won't be for self-aggrandizement but "unto God and his Father" (Rev 1:6). Note that with that verse, John recognized Jesus as God and saw "his Father". Truly, when we see Jesus, we will indeed see the Father, reinforcing John 14:9 "he that hath seen me hath seen the Father."

Every Word ever said in the Bible points toward this end! In the beginning, knowing we would fail, "God so loved us" that He made a Plan. In the beginning, God had a Plan for me, and one for you. We can either be part of His desire that we not perish, or choose perishability. The wise one chooses life; the fool chooses death. At death everyone either continues slavery to Satan or becomes royalty alongside God!

Oh yes. I about forgot to explain the meek inheriting the earth in Mat 5:5. Jerusalem - "the foundation of peace", is the location to which New Jerusalem - the City of God, will be after the earth is cleansed by fire (Rev 3:12). The meek, heirs of God, as kings and priests will return to the original location of the Garden. Heaven will come down to where it once was, and there our inheritance will be the earth; the very foundation of it!