I Peter 2:9 ‘But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for His Own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of Him Who called you out of darkness into His marvelous light.’ When I hear people talk about this verse they usually talk about the first three things we are when we trust Christ as our Lord our Master. The first three are great and that is true we are 1) chosen race (all Christians), 2) royal priesthood (now we can go directly to our Father in prayer), 3) holy nation (not USA remember we are exiles and sojourners here on earth our nation is not of this world). These three are great! I love them, but we forget about the fourth one 4) people for His Own possession. This is huge you are not your own person anymore, you have an owner and that owner can do with us anything He desires for His Own purposes. We are God’s possession.
All things that I own that I bought or made, I buy and make for a reason. We own things to help us out or to give us pleasure. Well, we are Gods possession. We are here for a reason and that reason is to proclaim the excellencies of God. That means all the time in bad times, in dark times, in great times you get the idea. It means at work, school, home, alone on the computer all of us that are chosen of God must proclaim the excellencies of God every place we go and all the time in how we talk, look and act. Why? Because He is God, because we are His possession, because He called you out of darkness and into His marvelous light.
This is hard to do in the world that we live in. However, it was harder to do in the time Peter wrote. These Christians may have faced death, would be treated as outcasts, they would have lost family, work and friends if they proclaimed the excellencies of Christ. Yes, it is hard, but we have to always remember who we are. We are a chosen race no longer Americans but Christians. We are a royal priesthood so we must all live like it and pray to our Father daily, study His Word/Bible, we must live out what we study and live not for ourselves and comfort but for God and His Name. We are a holy nation and we are not living in that nation yet, we are sojourners and exiles we are representatives of our heavenly nation and when people see us living for the comforts of this nation of this life we are terrible representatives. Above all we are God’s Own possession we do not belong to ourselves, all we have is His so lets act like it is all His. Then we will find truth joy.
