Fathers’ Day: God’s Chosen Treasures, Priests and Kings
Shannon Thieneman
1 Peter 2:9 (TPT) “You are God’s chosen treasure – priests who are kings, a spiritual nation set apart as God’s devoted ones. He called you out of darkness to experience His marvelous light, and now he claims you as his very own.”
Revelation 1:6. “To Him who has made us to be a kingdom, and priests to serve his God and Father – to him be glory and power forever and ever!”
Jesus did not come to establish a new religion; He came to facilitate spiritual transformation in all aspects of life. He came to establish the Kingdom of God. He refers to the Kingdom of God in the Gospels over a hundred times. Mark 1:15 (NIV) “The Time has come, Jesus said. The Kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” Mark 1:15 {AMP) “The appointed period of time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of God is at hand; repent (change your old way of thinking); seek God’s purpose for your life and believe with a deep, abiding trust in the good news.”
The good news of the Gospel is that the King of the Kingdom of God has arrived, and He is Emmanuel, God with us! N T Wright (an English New Testament scholar) wrote – “Our culture is so fixed on dying and going to Heaven when the whole scripture is about Heaven coming to earth.” Your primary invitation in God’s Kingdom is to RECEIVE from the transforming and restoring love of the King. All you have to do is believe, receive, and participate.
The good news – everyone has access to God. We can hear from God. He wants to heal you to wholeness, which means the way of your being matches the truth of your being: your true identity. Putting things together with intricate beauty and order is the work of God.
It is delightful that the Hebrew word shalom (which means peace) also means complete or whole. Shalom refers to something complex, with lots of pieces that are in a state of wholeness and completeness. When used as a verb, shalom means to make complete or restore. The purposes of God are wholeness and completeness.
Brandon Lake and Phil Wickham wrote a song called “The Love of God.” They give an introduction to this song on the live performance. Brandon encourages the audience to let God love on them. From a grateful heart, we often love on the Lord, but truly, how often do you let the Lord love on you? Brandon speaks directly to all men. He said that it’s a hard thing for men to do. He said you will be missing out if you don’t allow God to love on you and to speak to you, to tell you why He loves you and what He thinks about you.
Phil went on to say, sometimes we have to be so intentional with remembering that we are loved. You don’t have to earn God’s love, and nothing can separate you from it. He quotes Romans 8:38-39 “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus.” You know it in your head, but do you know it in your heart?
Our created destiny is that we shall, as John the Beloved promised, abide in the refuge of God’s love because we are living it out in our lives. I John 4:16 “God is love, and the man whose life is lived in love does in fact live in God, and God does, in fact, live in him.”
