What A Great God We Serve

Do you know what makes you royalty? We are a royal priesthood, after all, but in what way are we such? Let me list the benefits of being in the royal priesthood.

1) We are chosen by the Creator who is also our God and King.

In ancient times, the king of a nation was also a representative of the national god. This structure was set up by our God and King from before creation. Man used it but man did not create this model.

2) As chosen people, we get to have a personal relationship with our God and King. He literally is our Father because we have been born of His Spirit. We came into the world through a physical family which also has a “spirit”. Families and couples create a “spirit” which represents them of which we are part. All human beings come with a body and a spirit from birth and are part of a larger “spirit” group called family.

This is also true of us when we are born again, born of YHVH’s Spirit. At the moment we are born again of His Spirit, we become part of His family. But there is a problem. We have to grow in His Spirit within us. Our flesh with all its desires is the hard shell of our seed. We are only a seed which softens in the baptism water and germinates until we grow more and more in the likeness of God’s son Yeshua. He bought us with a price which is His precious blood and the water that soaks our “seed” so we can germinate to become just like Him. Yes, we are forgiven of the impurities and sins which define our flesh and our flesh is the seed that needs to be sloughed off, split open so that God’s Spirit can grow us into Yeshua’s image.

3) Being part of God’s family means we get to call on His actual name. We get to call on a name that not even Abraham knew. The name is YHVH. This is the royal family name, the name of both the Father and His Son. The Son took a human name when He put His Spirit in the human body. That name is Yeshua, but He is YHVH and it is upon this name which we have the privilege to call on.

Only family members get to have the intimate family relationship. We get to “call on His name”, meaning we speak and He listens, He will have conversations with us. We ask and He answers. No one outside the family has this privilege. They do not get to call YHVH “Father”. They can approach Him for help and He may or may not give it. Not so with His children. He will always help us when we ask. However, there is a caveat to this. If what we ask is not good for us, our Father will give us what is good for us even is that might mean we must be tested for a time. Sometimes parents test their children to find out if the child is ready to give up the training wheels, but before that, the parent must wait to see if the child is ready to ride by testing his walk. If the child cannot walk yet, it is certain the child can’t ride a bike. Our Father knows exactly the right time when we are ready to go to the next stage of life or our walk with Him. He never gives us more than we can handle. So if we ask, and it is not yet time, He will give us what we need to get to the point where we can have what we ask for. Gentiles, people who are not born into our family, do not have this privilege even though there are times when He will answer their requests.

The privilege of calling on YHVH’s name is more important than we might suppose. We cannot call the president of king of the country where we live and have a personal conversation, but that is exactly what YHVH’s children get to do. And we do not need special devices to do it, either. All we need to do is speak with the intention of having a conversation with Him and He picks up the call to answer us no matter where we are or when we call, even in the middle of the night. Especially in the middle of the night!

Because YHVH is our Father, and because His nation is called Israel, we who are in His family are “Israelites”. We are of the nation called Israel in the Bible. The modern nations of Israel and the Biblical nation are two different things. The modern nation which uses the name “Israel” was made by man. The Biblical nation “Israel” was made by YHVH, our God.

These two are very different nations. First and foremost, when Yeshua went to the cross, He went there to restore His nation, Israel, so people could choose to accept Him as their God and King and be accepted in Biblical Israel as citizens. The “Israel” He created, and later came to die for, has 12 tribes. The modern “Israel” only claims to have 4 tribes and some companions from some of the other tribes. The history of this is very long and beyond the scope of this article. However, Israel will become 12 tribes again when Yeshua returns to reign over all the earth.

Right now, Yeshua is our god and King who rules over His people on the earth, but the day is coming when He will reign ON the earth OVER His people AND over the nations. We look forward to that day!

4) We are royal. We are treated as such within the family’s realm which is called “Kingdom”. We get special treatment where food is concerned. He will not let us eat anything that lowers our standing with Him, things He would never eat and did not eat when He was on earth.

5) We are given special rituals to keep us pure, “clean”, as it were. These all involve water cleansing. We have the privilege of water cleansing, baptisms or “mikvahs”, once we are cleansed by the blood of Yeshua’s sacrifice. No Father wants “stinky” children coming to visit him. Human parents keep their children clean; so does our Heavenly Father keep us clean by giving us instructions on how to do that.

6) Because we are royal, we have special responsibilities to keep the Family name from being sullied. Often in the press we read about royal scandals. Britain is one such country whose royals constantly scandalize and cause trouble for that royal family.

What does that kind of behavior do to the minds of the general public? It lowers our opinion of the British royalty, doesn’t it? The same goes for us. If we claim to be of this royal YHVH family then profane His name by misbehaviors, sins and rebellion against the royal family’s instructions given to us by our Father, we profane His (and our) royal name. Is it any wonder people do not trust YHVH? As representatives of His wonderful Kingdom, we have given the general public no reason to trust us, and because we represent Him, they do not trust Him, either.

Our special responsibilities have to do with how we treat our Father in Heaven and how we treat other people on earth. The Bible uses the word “neighbor” in an instruction that commands us to treat our “neighbor” as we would ourself. That instruction was given at Mount Sinai when YHVH formalized His nation Israel on earth, and it was later repeated by Yeshua YHVH while He lived on earth. Many who call themselves by His name have no desire to learn and understand the fullness of the instructions He gave us on how to treat others.

Who is our neighbor? Everyone who is not us. A neighbor is a word meaning all people we come in contact with, both Israelite and Gentile. We are to treat everyone as if he or she is as special as we are even when he or she is not yet in YHVH’s family, born of His Holy Spirit as we are.

Our God is also our King and we are born of His Spirit. This is what makes us royalty and what makes him great! To accept humans into His family is something no worldly royalty does. Him making us royal also makes Him SO GREAT! We are royalty because of all the items listed above and more. Shouldn’t we learn from His instructions found in commandments to live like royals? Yes, we should. Let us take this business of being a royal in the family of our Creator, God and King seriously and determine that we will study His instructions so that we can develop into what He is!