God Is Your Prized Possession

SYNOPSIS: Like the Levites, the Apostle Peter declares that we are “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. (1 Peter 2:9) That’s a pretty big deal: we are God’s prized possession—and God is ours! And there is no better inheritance in this life, and in the next, than in God choosing us to intermediate his holy presence. I’m not sure we have the capacity to grasp that glorious calling, but I think it would be worth meditating on what God has done by his grace in choosing us for that role.

The Journey // Focus: Deuteronomy 18:2,5

The Levites will have no land of their own among the Israelites. The Lord himself is their special possession, just as he promised them…. For the Lord your God chose the tribe of Levi out of all your tribes to minister in the Lord’s name forever.

There were twelve tribes in Israel, each the descendants of Jacob’s twelve sons. Eleven of those tribes were given land as their inheritance. When they entered the Promised Land, God specifically assigned them territory that would be theirs in perpetuity. But there was one tribe that didn’t receive any land—and land ownership was a very big deal in ancient Israel, even more important than land ownership is today. One tribe was singled out for no inheritance of property: the tribe of Levi.

Now that might seem a bit unfair, or a lot. Yet they were given a better inheritance. Not better from the perspective of the carnal mind, but better from the true perspective of heaven. They were given the Lord himself. God had singled out one tribe, the Levites, as his own prized possession in a nation that was singled out from the rest of the world as his prized people. So the Levites were the prized of the prized.

God chose them for the ministry of worship because they had defended his holiness at great risk to themselves during a times of national rebellion. For their costly sacrifice, God set them apart for the sacred duty of ministering the tabernacle sacraments; for set up, breaking down and moving the holy furnishings from place to place; and for intermediating the rest of Israel’s sacrifices to the Lord their God. The Levites were a very special bunch indeed, both in God’s sight and in the eyes of the rest of Israel.

They had no land, but they had God. They had no earthly inheritance, but they had God. They had no other possession, but they had a prized possession to a degree that no one else had—they had the Lord God himself as their ever-present and eternal reward. I am sure that we don’t fully appreciate what that meant in a day and age where we look to the abundance of things and the accumulation of material wealth as the grand prize, but that was a very big deal, indescribably so.

Here is the deal: God is your prized possession, too. Like Israel, you have been set apart as holy unto the Lord; you are distinctly his. But even more so, like the Levites, you have an even greater, more special calling, for you too are set apart as a priest to God. Revelation 1:6 and 5:10, respectively, tell us,

He has made us a Kingdom of priests for God his Father. All glory and power to him forever and ever! Amen.

And you have caused them to become a Kingdom of priests for our God. And they will reign on the earth.”

Furthermore, the Apostle Peter taught that like the Levites, and in reality, at even higher new covenant level, you are “A chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. (1 Peter 2:9)

That is a pretty big deal, my friend. You are God’s prized possession—and God is your prized possession. And there is no better inheritance, in this life and in the next, than being chosen by God to intermediate his holy presence.

I am not sure you and I have the capacity to grasp the blessed reality of that, but I think it would be worth meditating on what God has done by his grace in choosing us for that role.