Morning By Morning #332

He showed me Joshua the high priest standing before the angel of the LORD.

Zechariah 3:1

From the pen of Charles Spurgeon:

In this verse Joshua the high priest is a picture of each child of God. We stand before the Lord because of the blood of Christ, having been taught to minister in holy things, and we enter into the “Most Holy Place behind the curtain” (Lev. 16:2). Jesus has made us priests and kings unto God, and even here on earth we exercise the priestly duties of consecrated living and holy service.

In today’s verse notice the position of the high priest. He is standing—“standing before the angel of the LORD”—meaning he is in a position ready to minister. And this should be the continual position of every true believer. We should think of everywhere we are as God’s temple and, as such, we can truly serve Him in our daily work as though we were in His very house. We are to minister continually, offering “a sacrifice of praise” (Heb. 13:15) and prayer and presenting ourselves to Him as “living sacrifices” (Rom. 12:1).

Next notice where Joshua stands to minister—it is “before the angel of the LORD” Jehovah. Thus, it is only through a mediator that we poor defiled ones can ever become priests unto God. I present my sacrifice before God’s messenger, the angel of the covenant—the Lord Jesus. My prayers find acceptance only by being wrapped in His prayers, and my praises are made fragrant only as they are combined with bundles of “myrrh and aloes and cassia” (Ps. 45:8) from Christ’s own garden. If all I can bring Him are my tears, He will place them with His tears in His own bottle, for He once wept as well. If all I can bring Him are my groans and sighs, He will accept them as an acceptable sacrifice, for He once was brokenhearted and His soul sighed heavily too.

I myself, standing in Christ, am “accepted in the beloved” (Eph. 1:6 KJV), and all my polluted works, though they are in and of themselves simply objects of God’s divine loathing, are through Him received in such a way they become a “pleasing aroma” (Gen. 8:21) to God. He is content in my “sacrifice of praise” and prayer and I am blessed.

Finally, therefore, notice the position of the Christian—a “priest standing before the angel of the LORD.”

From the pen of Jim Reimann:

Three months after the Lord delivered His children from Egypt, He told them through Moses, “Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation” (Ex. 19:5 – 6).

Consider the awesomeness of God’s Word and His faithfulness as you read of the fulfillment of this prophecy in Christ’s church more than 1,500 years later! Here is how Peter describes our Lord Jesus and us as His followers:

As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ…But 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 2:4 – 5, 9