Bishop Elijah Bankole
(The Priesthood of Christ)
[biblegateway passage=”Psalm 110:1-7″ display=”Psalm 110:1-7″]
Moses served in the House, but Jesus was the builder of the House. That House was called the Israel of God.
[biblegateway passage=”Matthew 28:18-20″ display=”Matthew 28:18-20″]
Jesus tells us in Matthew that He has been given all power in Heaven and earth. This is a motivation for purity, as well as for boldness in prayer.
[biblegateway passage=”Hebrews 4:14-16″ display=”Hebrews 4:14-16″]
The writer in the above text tells us that our High Priest is One Who can understand our infirmities and weaknesses. This means that if we are going to succeed, we will need our High Priest because He is the One Who is willing to help and is empowered to help.
He has gone through the Heavens in the very Presence of God. An understanding of this is very important. He didn’t go behind a mere curtain. The veil in the temple was a mere shadow of what existed in heaven, in the very Presence of God. That was the separation that was torn when Jesus died on the cross.
We must therefore hold on firmly to what we profess because Jesus suffered just as we but without sin.
[biblegateway passage=”Genesis 3:15″ display=”Genesis 3:15″], [biblegateway passage=”Revelations 13:8″ display=”Revelations 13:8″], [biblegateway passage=”John 1:1-3″ display=”John 1:1-3″], [biblegateway passage=”Hebrews 10:5″ display=”Hebrews 10:5″]
The Word had created and now it was time for the Word to save. It didn’t come this time as a spoken Word, but in the form of a baby. God more or less put that Word in an ‘envelope’ and placed Him in the womb of Mary.
[biblegateway passage=”Philippians 2:6-7″ display=”Philippians 2:6-7″], [biblegateway passage=”Hebrews 7:25″ display=”Hebrews 7:25″]
Jesus loved the name ‘son of man’. Until He became man, He would not be fulfilling the justice of God. Man sinned and that made it necessary for man, not an angel, to redeem Him. It required blood. He needed to be a true representative of humanity. Jesus came and went through all that we went through, but without sin. For this reason, when we pray, Jesus intercedes for us because He knows what we say. He has felt it before.
God has the right to skip any protocol. Jesus came from the line of Judah, not Levi. So God decided to choose Him to be our High Priest even though He was not from the tribe of priests. The unusualness of Jesus was that He decided to humble Himself and die on the cross. You are great because God has chosen you to be great, not because of who your parents are.
The created cannot save the created, no matter how holy or religious. What will save you will have to come from outside you. Jesus Christ once and for all, entered into the Holy of holies. To do this, He had to destroy the one on earth, by opening it and rendering it useless. He had to do it just once, not once every year as had been done in the Old Testament.
[biblegateway passage=”Hebrews 5:1-10, 12-13″ display=”Hebrews 5:1-10, 12-13″]
Jesus is our High Priest. You can’t go beyond Him. He is the Author, Architect and Finisher of our faith. We are to keep our eyes on Him for our reward (payment for putting your all into a cause). One of the reasons we often make a mess of things is that we have not learned the joy of delayed gratification. We want everything to be done for and given to us ‘NOW’. But we are told that what motivated Jesus to go to the cross was the “joy that was set before Him”.
If Jesus were to be alive in our day, no one would have wanted to be associated with Him because He was always controversial. Even the circumstances surrounding His birth were things people did not understand and talked about. God however made sure He came from the line of David. People were expectant, after John had described Who the Christ was. Jesus made Himself of no reputation deliberately. His teaching and the people He chose to associate Himself with. He was so unnoticed and unknown that someone had to be paid to identify Him. Hebrews 12 tells us why He had to go through all of this.
You are already in the line of priests (John 1:12).
[biblegateway passage=”2 Timothy 2:21″ display=”2 Timothy 2:21″]
There will be many princes, but only one king. You are given a chance to prove yourself. Just as in a big royal family, there will always be princes who will never be king. Jesus fulfilled what was required. He put His life down, He went down to the grave and hell. He did all that willingly.
What are you willing to pay to become what God has called you be?
[biblegateway passage=”Matthew 11:28-29″ display=”Matthew 11:28-29″]
One reason many Christians end up falling away is that they are given the wrong invitation from the very beginning. He never told us to come so all our troubles will end. He promised rest, but we must not work to get it. Taking up his yoke is a decision you have to make. You cannot make God fulfil a promise He never made. The first rest described in our text is the one He gives. The second rest, you must find and you find it through relationship with Him.
[biblegateway passage=”John 7:38″ display=”John 7:38″]
There is scriptural believing this makes you a conduit through which living water can flow to our generation. Unfortunately, we want to keep everything to ourselves. Our Chief High Priest left us an example. He gave of himself and from there God took over. Your life will not see corruption if you give it to Him. We were sent here to be priests- that is our calling. Anything else is an adjunct. God has no problem with His children being rich. Jesus only told us that riches may be a distraction.