Service a Gift - Alexander Maclaren

‘… I have given your priest’s office unto you as a service of gift.’ 

All Christians are priests — to offer sacrifices, alms, especially prayers; to make God known to men.

I. Our priesthood is a gift of God’s love.

We are apt to think of our duties as burdensome. They are an honour and a mark of God’s grace.

1. They are His gift —

(a) The power to do. All capacities and possessions from Him.

(b) The wish to do. ‘Worketh in you to will.’

(c) The right to do, through Christ.

2. They are a blessing.

(a) Note the good effects on ourselves — the increase of fellowship with Him, the strengthening of all holy desires.

(b) The future benefits. Apply this to prayer and to effort on behalf of our fellow-men.

II. Our priesthood is to be done as a service — under a sense of obligation to a master, with diligence (an [Greek: ergon], not a [Greek: parergon]).

III. Our priesthood is to be done as a gift to God — to be done joyfully, giving ourselves back to Him: ‘Yield yourselves unto God’ — ‘your reasonable service.’

Then only do we really possess ourselves, and ‘all things are ours, for we are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.’