This week we are getting deeper into the matter of the recovery of the priesthood for God’s building, and specifically we want to see what is the desire of God’s heart, what is the Lord’s need in His recovery today, what is God’s goal and to what extent this goal has become our goal, and what does the Body of Christ need today.
Have you ever wondered, as a believer in Christ and as a priest to God, what is the desire of God’s heart? What does He want today? Do we know the desire of God’s heart, and do we live in this and for this? Also, what does the Lord need in His recovery today? He works in the principle of incarnation, so the Lord needs something and we can cooperate with Him.
What is God’s goal? He is a God of purpose, and so what is His goal in this age? To what extent has God’s goal become our goal? Furthermore, what does the Body of Christ need today? God Himself has a need, and corresponding to that, the Body of Christ also has a need: what is the need of the Body of Christ today?
As the Lord is shining on us in the matter of the recovery of the priesthood for God’s building we need to have an unveiled heart, an exercised spirit, and a prayerful attitude so that He may reveal to us what is in His heart, what is His goal, what is His need, and what is the need of the Body of Christ today.
The Priesthood: the Failure on the Human Side and the Recovery on the Divine Side
If we trace the matter of the priesthood throughout the Bible we will see that on the human side there has always been failure but on the divine side there is a continual recovery. God called Adam to be a priest, spending time with God and expressing God, but Adam failed God; God therefore came in to recover the priesthood by His redemption, and Abel was brought back into the priesthood.
Eventually, the priesthood under redemption was lost by man; God then came in to call Abraham to be a priest, and in many instances Abraham functioned as a priest to God – especially when the Lord came to visit him in his tent and Abraham interceded for Lot.
Gradually, Abraham’s descendants, the children of Israel, failed to exercise the priesthood and were in slavery in Egypt; then God came in through Moses to deliver them and, through the Passover, to make them a kingdom of priests (Exo. 19). But even the nation of Israel has failed God when the worshipped the golden calf, and so the priesthood was turned to the tribe of Levi.
Later, during the time of Eli the priest, the priesthood was completely lost, and it wasn’t until the kings and prophets were raised by God and stood on God’s side that the priesthood was recovered. Again and again we see that there has always been failures on the human side and a recovery of the priesthood on the divine side.
The Lord Jesus came as the Priest of priests, and He brought the believing Gentiles into the priesthood; now we through Christ’s redemption are priests to God, and we need to have fellowship with the Lord and function as priests in our daily life. The Lord today is recovering the priesthood in all the local churches on the earth.
The Lord’s recovery is entirely a matter of the priesthood. The Lord’s recovery is realized by the priesthood, and actually the Lord’s recovery is the recovery of the priesthood (see Zech. 3:1-5; 6:12-13; Hag. 1:8, 12). The whole church should be the priesthood; however, this priesthood has been lost and replaced by the clergy-laity system in Christianity today, a system that is much hated by God (Rev. 2:6, 15).
We need to be recovered and come back to the God-ordained way to meet and to serve so that any clergy-laity system may be torn down, and there would be no passive members in the church but all would be active, functioning, living believers who function as priests.
Today in the church life we need to be in the Lord’s recovery of the priesthood; we must be recovered into this priesthood, which means that we need to be brought back into the genuine fellowship with the Lord (see 1 Cor. 14:26; 1:9; 1 John 1:3).
We need to spend much time with the Lord personally so that we may be cleansed by His blood, enjoy Him as the reality of the offerings, be filled with Him, be saturated with Him, and be one with Him to be the reproduction of Christ as the priest of God. We need to ask the Lord, Lord, what is in Your heart concerning me? Recover me and all the saints to a genuine fellowship with the Lord as priests!
Also, we need to have a spirit of fellowship: we are a priesthood, and as we fellowship with others, we need to be willing to drop our opinion and feeling and be joined to the saints in one accord for the Lord’s interest!
Lord Jesus, recover the church life by recovering the real priesthood among us. Lord, we must be recovered into this priesthood: we must be brought back into the genuine fellowship with the Lord and in proper fellowship with the saints in the Body of Christ. Lord, we don’t want to repeat the history of failure in Christianity; recover us to be priests to God, part of the priesthood You need on earth today! We want to spend more time with You to be infused with You and filled with You so that we may be priests to God! Lord Jesus, bring us back into a genuine fellowship with You and with the saints!
The Lord needs a Group of People who are Brought into God Himself to be One with Him
We need to see what is on God’s heart today: He wants to recover the priesthood among us in all the local churches. The Lord’s recovery today is a matter of the priesthood, not a matter of work, a movement, or of doing things for the Lord.
Our responsibility is not to care for any kind of work but to simply take care of the priesthood by learning to be possessed and occupied by the Lord until we are filled, saturated, and permeated with Him (see Eph. 3:16-17, 19).
We simply need to learn to be occupied and possessed by the Lord and open our entire being to Him. We shouldn’t just acknowledge this and understand it mentally; we shouldn’t have a passive acceptance of the Lord’s word – which can be also a passive resistance – but have an active acceptance, praying back to the Lord what He speaks to us,
Lord, saturate us, permeate us, and fill us with Yourself! We open every part of our inner being to You. If there’s anything that hinders Your saturation, terminate it through the cross! Lord, we mean business with You. We want to be faithful to You and faithful to our fellow priests by learning to be filled and permeated with You! Oh Lord, save us from being passively receiving Your word; we want to be actively responding to Your speaking by praying these things daily before You until You make them real in our being and our living!
What the Lord needs to day is a group of people who are brought in His presence; He needs a group of priests who would spend time with God until they live in God’s presence and even live in God so that they would be one with Him (see Heb. 10:19; 2 Cor. 3:18; John 17:22, 24).
God needs us to cooperate with Him for the fulfillment of His purpose, and the way we can cooperate with Him is by spending time with Him and being in His presence, even being in God Himself, until we are one with Him and one with the saints, thus experiencing the enlarged divine oneness.
When the Lord has such a priesthood – a kingdom of priest – He will have the freedom to flow out and work out His will for the fulfillment of His eternal purpose (Exo. 19:6a; Rev. 1:5-6; 5:9-10; 4:11; Eph. 1:5, 9, 11; Phil. 2:13).
The Lord wants to fulfill His purpose, but we as His people may not give Him the freedom to do so by being one with Him; we need to hold Him as the Head, be filled and saturated with Him, and then He will have a way to flow through us and fulfill His purpose through the priesthood.
What the Lord needs is our cooperation; He works in the principle of incarnation, being limited by man’s willing cooperation. We need to be those who tell the Lord,
Lord Jesus, make us the group of people who are brought into Your presence and even into the Lord Himself until we are one with You! Lord, we don’t want to hinder You from the fulfillment of Your purpose. Saturate us, fill us, permeate us with Yourself, and bring us fully into You until we are one with You. Lord, may You have the freedom to flow out among us and work out Your will for the fulfillment of Your purpose! Gain us as the kingdom of priests that affords You a way to fulfill Your eternal purpose!
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my Christian experience, bro. Ron Kangas’ sharing in the message for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1966, vol. 1, “The Priesthood,” ch. 6, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, The Recovery of the Priesthood or God’s Building, week 8 / msg 8, The Recovery of the Priesthood for God’s building.
- All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
- Hymns on this topic to strengthen this burden:
# Now the church is but the priesthood; / Thus the priesthood formed we need; / When the priests are knit together, / Then the church is built indeed. / Through the church’s degradation, / Saints this office desolate; / Through the weakness of their spirits / Preaching doth predominate. (Hymns #848)
# That recovery may proceed / Real priests are what we need— / Those who live in Christ indeed, / O glory be to God! / Saturated with the Lord, / They have Christ as their reward. / These the building work afford / In the local churches now. (Hymns #1251)
# With all the cleansed ones feasting, / How rich the Christ we eat! / Oh, this is true communion, / The only way to meet. / We bring our full thanksgiving / And e’en would make a vow— / We’re for the Lord’s recovery / As He is for us now. (Hymns #1104)
About aGodMan
The record in the Bible clearly shows that none of the work of God was initiated by man’s thought or activity. All His work has been initiated through the priesthood. We must forget about the work, activities, movements, methods, forms, and even the teachings and gifts. Our one unique need is the real priesthood.
We need some time to be on the “housetop,” on the “island of Patmos,” on the “side of the river,” and in the “wilderness.” This simply means that we need some time to be separated and shut up unto the Lord so that we may spend not just our time but have our very life and person in His presence. Then He will occupy us, and our whole concept will be changed to the heavenly view of the priesthood.
The recovery of the church life is not a movement, work, or activity, but only the recovery of the priesthood. What the Lord needs is a group of people who are brought into His presence and even into the Lord Himself until they are one with Him. Then He will have the freedom to flow out and work out His will for the fulfillment of His purpose. (Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1966, pp. 440-441)
Amen…Lord Jesus cause us to fulfill Your heart’s desire that we should continually and absolutely to seek You and to be one with You in our mingled spirit through calling upon Your name and enjoying Your word in spirit for us to be saturated permeated with Your divine life into us!
Day by day we should be filled with the Holy Spirit contacting You in our spirit so that You can work within us to be God man the same as You are in life and nature shining as a golden lampstand in the tabernacle expressing and representing You as a vessel. Lord Jesus keep us always in Your presence to love You more! Hallelujah Christ is victorious in the church!