We have received the honor of being Jesus’ ambassadors

Hebrews 5:4 And no one takes the honor to himself, but receives it when he is called by God, even as Aaron was. We are continuing to look at the writer of Hebrew’s description of the high priest’s ministry to which Jesus will be compared. Being a high priest wasn’t an office for which someone ran, like a politician runs for office. He received the position when he was called by God through his birth into Aaron’s lineage. Aaron received it because he was born to the tribe of Levi and then was appointed by God to the position. To the author’s point, Aaron didn’t take the honor of serving as God’s high priest to himself. I want to encourage you today with this reality. Being a Christian, a believer in Jesus, is an honor bestowed on you. You didn’t choose to be a Christian, you were born again by the Holy Spirit. Your faith and choice to follow Jesus are evidences that you have been born by God. He is your father, and Jesus is your brother. By birth, you have been appointed to serve God and those around you by representing Jesus to them. You didn’t take the honor to yourself. You received it when God called you into life in Jesus. That calling (as Paul wrote to Timothy) is “a holy calling, not according to our works, but according to His own purpose and grace which was granted us in Christ Jesus from all eternity” (2 Tim. 1:9). So you and I have been called by God to be agents of love in this world, empowered by the indwelling Son of God. This is an important aspect of our identity in Christ. He has honored us by calling us in His Son. We have a sense of duty to love perhaps like the high priest did. I think of it as a duty to love since it is the guiding principle in our relationship with both God and others. It isn’t a burden, it’s an honor to love with Jesus. How blessed and honored we are to be His ambassadors in this world—representing Jesus to the world and giving them access to Him through our intercession for them and through our lives of love.