A habit we need to cultivate is having an attitude of worship. This devotional leading looks at how we, as priests, should have an attitude of prayer.
Nuggets
- We are to collectively and individually be priests offering living sacrifices to God.
- The attitude we have in prayer should be one of sacrificial offering.
This is one of those times when I wasn’t sure that Charnock’s words matched the verses he used as evidence to support his opinion.
Charnock noted that we should offer our spiritual worship in the name of Christ. I read the verses to say that we should have the attitude of priests, have a prayerful attitude.
Let’s see where this goes.
Let's Put It into Context
To read devotions in the Habitual Holiness of Heart and Life theme, click the button below.
Here is a running list of nuggets for the theme.
Devotions in the Finding Jesus through Spiritual Worship study
Here is a running list of nuggets for the study.
The foundation of this series is Menander and Charnock’s Spiritual Worship.
Resource
The Attitude of Priests
“And you are living stones that God is building into his spiritual temple. What’s more, you are his holy priests. Through the mediation of Jesus Christ, you offer spiritual sacrifices that please God” (I Pet. 2: 5 NLT)
We are to collectively and individually be priests offering living sacrifices to God.
Let’s think through the construction analogy. Peter used it to show us how we are to worship.
Let’s look at this in reverse order.
God is building. He is still putting His temple together. We can take this statement two different ways.
One way to look at it is the spiritual temple is being increased. Thankfully, God is still adding people as living stones.
God still offers people salvation. Salvation is the gift of life through the deliverance from condemnation and sin to acceptance and holiness and changes us from being spiritually dead to spiritually alive.
- Sin is not believing that Jesus is our Savior to save us from our actions by humans that disobey God and break one of His reasonable, holy, and righteous laws and commandments, goes against a purpose He has for us, or follows Satan’s promptings.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues and to serve and worship God.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Spiritual graces are worldly morals that have been submitted to God to further His kingdom instead of enhancing this world.
- Sanctified means to be set free from sin.
- Righteous means we are free from sin because we are following God’s moral laws.
- Pure means not being sinful or having the stain of sin.
- Virtues are standards of moral excellence.
- Perfection means we reach a state of maturity because the combination of the spiritual graces form, when all are present, spiritual wholeness or completeness — holy, sanctified, and righteous.
- Holy means to be set apart — because of our devotion to God — to become perfect, and morally pure while possessing all virtues and to serve and worship God.
- Holiness is the transcendent excellence of His nature that includes elements of purity, dedication, and commitment that lead to being set apart.
- Purity means possessing God’s moral character, having eliminated the stain of sin.
- Spiritual death is the spiritual separation from God that occurred as a consequence of Adam and Eve’s original sin.
- The spiritually alive are those who have ABCDed, so they are no longer separated from God.
Glossary
We normally think this is referring to the temple as the collective Church. But let’s look at it like this.
God is increasing us. “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own” (I Cor. 6: 19 ESV).
We must build the temple by spiritual means. We grow as we are sanctified. Sanctification is the transformational process of the mind, body, and soul, which begins with regeneration; gradually changes our nature and morals through the promptings of the Holy Spirit; and ends with perfected state of spiritual wholeness or completeness.
- Regeneration is being changed from spiritually dead to spiritually alive and the internal new birth and requickening that God brings about through the work of the Holy Spirit to give us new character.
Glossary
It sometimes baffles us that we are called priests. Peter probably thought his readers would trip over this, too. That is why he went on to say, “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light” (I Pet. 2: 9 ESV).
We are living stones and priests only when we have asked Jesus to be our Savior and Redeemer. It is only through His intervention that we can access God.
We shouldn’t be surprised to be called priests. We should expect that when our devotion to God is at that level.
If we don’t consider ourselves priests, doesn’t that say our relationship with God is lacking?
Thomas argued that disciples are priests because of the access we have to God. “Now all of us can come to the Father through the same Holy Spirit because of what Christ has done for us” (Eph. 2: 18 NLT).
Resource
We also know that any building of the temple must be through Him. “This Jesus is the stone that was rejected by you, the builders, which has become the cornerstone” (Ac. 4: 11 ESV).
Our job description says that the sacrifice that God requires from us is that we are a living sacrifice. A living sacrifice is the embodiment of becoming sanctified and giving everything to God after being forgiven of our sins.
The Disciple’s Job Description
Complete Job Description
Individual Description
Job Duty #1
Be a Living Sacrifice (Romans 12: 1-2)
Our attitude in spiritual worship must be that we are seeking to please God. Isn’t that what the priests were to do? That hasn’t changed.
Okay, now let’s tackle what living stones are. We get that they should be us. But what does this look like, and how does that fit in with being temples?
Spurgeon helped us with that. He wrote, “When we become holy, as we should be, we shall count all places and all hours to be the Lord’s, and we shall always dwell in His temple because God is everywhere.”
Resource
Some might question why we are equated to stones. Skinner put this in perspective. He reminded us of the honor it is to be a pillar in God’s temple.
Resource
We have to put this into context. Jesus said we are to worship God in spirit and in truth. Our worship is not the only thing that is now spiritual.
The temple is spiritual, too. It must be a living entity. It must be a living sacrifice.
The Attitude of Prayer
“Then another angel with a gold incense burner came and stood at the altar. And a great amount of incense was given to him to mix with the prayers of God’s people as an offering on the gold altar before the throne” (Rev. 8: 3 NLT)
The attitude we have in prayer should be one of sacrificial offering.
I read several sermons that felt the angel discussed in Revelation 8: 3 is really Jesus. I get what they are saying. Only He has the job of placing our prayers on the altar before God.
What I don’t get is why this time — after identifying Jesus as Jesus or the Lamb — does John use code. He called Him an angel instead of by His name. I don’t get it.
John talked about two elements of spiritual worship in Revelation 8: 3. They are offerings and prayer.
Let’s talk about prayer. It is how we are distinguished from non-believers.
In Revelation 8: 3, we are told where the worship is to happen. It occurs at the altar of God.
Bonar explained which one the altar was in the temple. He wrote, “It is the altar that stood in the holy place that is here referred to in the third verse, not the brazen altar; it is the golden altar, the altar of incense; the altar of prayer and praise; the altar at which the priests ministered, and where also blood was sprinkled. In what respects it differed from the mercy-seat (at the place of prayer) does not quite appear. At this altar all who are God’s priests, all His royal priesthood, officiate.”
Resource
Do you see what it says? We come to the altar, acting like priests. We just talked about the fact that we are priests.
This is the altar to which we come. We offer sincere worship at this altar. We act like we are priests.
The wonderful thing about prayers is they will be answered. When we sincerely pray in God’s will, and in Jesus’ name, God will hear.
I like the part of the verse where the incense mixes with the prayers. Incense is a mixture of spices that the high priest burned along with the sacrifices.
It isn’t a little bit of incense. It was a great amount.
The gold incense burner is used at the gold altar. Parsons reminded us of something important. He wrote, “The Jewish priest could not stand by the altar of incense unless he had first of all offered an atonement for sin: and when there is a vision of our Lord Jesus as the High Priest of our profession standing by the golden altar, the necessary assumption is, that He too had first offered an atonement for sin.”
Resource
One thing I don’t think we realize is that our prayers are added to all other prayers. Yes, we are to pray individually to navigate the Sanctification Road as we should.
But the prayers of all the saints are offered as one.
We sometimes question how God can hear all of the different prayers. I read that to say He can hear them all because they come to Him as one prayer.
Parsons believed that is where Jesus as Intercessor comes in. All of our prayers are filtered through Jesus.
We’ve been looking at this through the lens of attitude. What attitude do we have to have for spiritual worship?
But Charnock’s description of this section included that our worship had to be offered in Jesus’ name. Henderson agreed. He wrote, “No prayer that rises from earth reaches the throne of grace but that which He presents. But none that is offered in His name is forgotten or omitted in the ministrations of this great High Priest.”
Resource
Every prayer must come through Jesus.
What are the prayers being offered? Henderson gave us a list.
- Prayers for salvation.
- Prayers for the unsaved.
- Prayers for blessings on His people beyond our petitions.
- Prayers for what we should be praying for but don’t know what we should be praying for.
- Prayers for a successful sanctification process to lead to perfection.
Prayer is an important indicator of the sincerity of our spiritual worship. We have to be in communion with God to genuinely worship Him.
Making the Connections #1
Body clarified what it means for a disciple to be a priest in God’s temple. He wrote, “Christians are a royal priesthood; they are united together in the Church to be a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ: the joy of priesthood should be the tasted joy of every member of the Church of Christ.”
Resource
The unity of Jesus’ disciples can occur because Christ’s body after the resurrection is a mystical body. It is the Church.
We are called to serve in the Church. Our service to God must be conducted in this unity.
Each of us has a place to serve God. We are each given different gifts in to service Him to expand His kingdom.
As priests engaged in spiritual worship, we have a duty to offer ourselves as living sacrifices to God. That has an intercessory element embedded in it.
Making the Connections #2
Mursell said something that I had never thought about before in exactly this way. He said that God does not require a sin sacrifice from us.
Resource
Sin sacrifices were done after the Jews unintentionally sinned. What Mursell was saying, in my opinion, was that we don’t need to offer a bull, which was the offerings for priests who had sinned. We have a different way in dealing with our sins.
Instead, God requires spiritual sacrifices. As we have said before, that means we turn our lives over to God as our sacrifice, seeking Him to change us to be like Him.
It pleases God when we do this in Jesus’ name.
How Do We Apply This?
- Don’t be placing more position or importance on ourselves as we should.
- Follow God’s plan for our lives, not our own.
- Actively serve as a priest of God that intercedes for others.
- Avoid trying to individualize what God is calling us to do.
- Perform our ministry as God call us to on His timeline.
- Witness to others.
- Offer to God as a sacrifice our broken and repentant heart.
- Worship God through prayer and praise.
- Serve God as a Matthew 25: 35-36 sheep.
- Ensure our temples can be inhabited by God.
- Wait for our prayers to be answered.
- Pray at the altar, in Jesus’ name, and for His sake.
Glossary
Resources
Father God. We want our attitude to be that of worship. We offer ourselves to You. Sanctify us so that we can be priests in Your kingdom. Amen.
The ABCDs of Salvation
If you have not become a believer in Christ, please read through the
Plan of Salvation and prayerfully consider what God is asking you to do.
A – admit our sins
B – believe His Son Jesus is our Redeemer
C – confess God as Sovereign Lord
D – demonstrate that commitment by making any changes needed in our lives to live the way in which God has called us
The Disciple’s Job Description
What do you think?
Leave me a comment below (about this or anything else) or head over to my Facebook group for some interactive discussion.
If you don’t understand something and would like further clarification, please contact me.
If you have not signed up for the email providing the link to the devotions and the newsletter, do so below.
If God has used this devotion to speak with you, consider sharing it on social media.