When I am on social media, I frequently read posts from believers about the different ways in which they serve God. And then days later, I read posts from some of these same believers seeking answers and looking for direction: why am I struggling with sin, how can I get closer to God, why do my prayers go unanswered? I’m feeling stuck and weary, like I let God down.

We can see the contradiction in this experience. Claiming to serve God, but not benefiting from it. God’s plan is that we go from strength to strength (Psalm 84:7). In this blog I’m going to share with you God’s pattern of anointed stewardship and its connection to the priesthood activity as His way for us to serve Him. The priesthood defines how we serve God and how God returns to us in strength.

Unfortunately, the word priesthood is very foreign to most believers and most are not even aware that God provided a new spiritual priesthood which Jesus purchased with His blood, and that God designed our relationship with Him into this new living priesthood and it is therefore the one way for us to serve Him and draw near to Him.

If you are weary and looking to God to strengthen your faith, if you are looking for God’s way to build up your faith, then the priesthood is God’s plan for you. The Christian priesthood has been so overlooked in the church, yet it is the very core and bedrock of your faith.

Before I get too far into my teaching, I want to make it clear that “priesthood” is not just another word for the “relationship” we have with God, but that God placed a specific practice in the new covenant priesthood and that practice is what makes up our relationship with God.

Just to make the priesthood of the new covenant relatable, think of the priesthood as the rules of faith or the rules of our engagement with God. I know, most Christians don’t believe in rules; they want their love for God and God’s love for them to be unconditional, meaning that God doesn’t have any expectations and that He did not equip our faith to be successful; our faith is not responsible to God; we can make it up as we go.

Apostle Paul, in his epistle, likening faith to a game that has to be played by the rules. Paul brings out in his teaching that if there are no rules to follow how shall we be victorious in Christ? He brings home the point that our faith can only function in the right way by God’s rules.

2 Timothy 2:5
And if a man also strive for masteries, yet is he not crowned, except he strive lawfully.

“Strive for masteries” has to do with excelling in a sport to achieve the ultimate goal and receive the spoils of victory. But the crown of victory isn’t given unless we “strive lawfully” or play by the rules. All sports follow a certain set of rules that detail how the game is played and what the expected outcome is to determine the winner. One of the most important things the rules of engagement does is create a common understanding.

The Lord Jesus uses this sports analogy through Apostle Paul to establish firmly in our minds that He does have an expectation for our faith and He intends for us to benefit through our contact with Him. These rules have been inscribed in Christ and now God has to inscribe them in your heart.

God says, “I’ll provide the power, all you have to do is engage me with my knowledge and spiritual tools.” That’s a spiritual priesthood. It’s that simple. But if its that simple, why do so many find it so difficult to find it? This reminds me of Acts chapter 8 when God sent Philip to the Ethiopian who was reading from the book of Isaiah about Jesus and His sacrifice on the cross. Philip asked him if he understood what he was reading and the Ethiopian said, “How can I, except some man should guide me?” (Acts 8:31). And he asked Philip to instruct him.

And that is what God is doing again today. He is sending apostles into the church to instruct believers in the way of the new spiritual priesthood of the new covenant.

Now that God has restored the new covenant to the church, we have the entire blueprint of truth to show us how to build with God. So, the priesthood is not a side project, but part of the foundation. As the restored foundation of truth is set in your heart you are given God’s building blocks as His mindset and completed picture of Christ. With these, God is ready to build with you and you’re equipped to build with Him.

Teacher Maria vonAnderseck received a word of knowledge from God: “The priesthood is the masonry of our faith.”

Masonry, of course, has to do with construction with stone and brick held together by mortar. The word masonry holds important symbolism that allows God to teach us how that He not only holds our faith together in the strength and power of His might, but how He builds our faith and how we build with Him. The priesthood involves God’s building program that takes place in the heart.

The priesthood is the masonry of our faith. Without it our faith falls apart. Most think that they can turn to the scripture to build their relationship with God and they begin stacking scriptures one upon another. But the Holy Spirit doesn’t move upon scripture, He moves upon the record (blueprint) of Jesus Christ which scripture confirms. Building your faith with scripture is like stacking bricks on top of each other with no mortar in-between to support and glue them together. If you lean on that wall, it’s going to fall over.

Getting to the spiritual side of this, God is the one constructing the likeness of Christ in the soul. We build with God using only the stones of His knowledge that are set in order by God’s spiritual government. The knowledge alone does not save us, we must put the knowledge to action with the anointing binding our faith to the power of God – and that’s our priesthood.

Our priesthood is all about serving God the right way, with the knowledge and spiritual tools He placed in the new covenant through Jesus to reciprocate to God.

Many times, a believer will say, “I read the scriptures, but I don’t experience the power to live them.” Has that been your experience? Whenever a believer would feel like God has become distant, their life isn’t changing and their faith is weak and ineffectual and they don’t know where to turn, the first thing the apostles would do is ask them about their priesthood.

So, that’s what I’m going to do as I get into the teaching about the priesthood God put into place for your faith to become operational. Just because you read the scriptures, it does not mean that your faith is operational (dividing the flesh from the Spirit, using the knowledge of Jesus’ covenant to build with God and to reciprocate).

The first thing God does when laying the foundation of truth in you is divide the kingdom of the flesh from the kingdom of the Spirit. I want you to know WHY that’s important. Most of the time when believers say that they’re struggling it’s because this division hasn’t taken place yet. Believers who aren’t serving God in their priesthood reciprocate the burden they carry – the cares of this life as they struggle with sin.

Believers who are serving God in their priesthood reciprocate everything that God gives them each day as they carry the knowledge of Christ in their vessel; we’re prophesying Christ as the anointing knits us together with God for increase.

Colossians 2:19
And not holding the Head, from which all the body by joints and bands having nourishment ministered, and knit together, increaseth with the increase of God.

Knowing God’s will for us to take part of the new priesthood puts a stop to assuming we can use anything as building material for our faith and it will hold up. So, what I did here was to first lay some groundwork to help you understand God’s perspective of the priesthood before we unwrap it further.

Your priesthood is so important to God that He differentiated it from the old covenant Levitical priesthood. Let’s get started with some reading from the book of Hebrews where God opens up the pattern of Jesus’ priesthood by linking it to Melchisedec and then contrasts this new order of the priesthood to the old order – the Levitical priesthood which was called after the order of Aaron.

Hebrews 7:11-12
¹¹ If therefore perfection were by the Levitical priesthood, (for under it the people received the law,) what further need was there that another priest should rise after the order of Melchisedec, and not be called after the order of Aaron?

¹² For the priesthood being changed, there is a change also of the law.

You will find that most Christians want their faith uncomplicated with truth. In other words, they want their relationship with God to be defined by the free-flow of their imagination. And here, in these verses, God calls attention to the “order” of the priesthood and tells us how and why it changed.

So, we can see that there’s a challenge there between what God is offering and what most want to accept. Being obedient to God means staying on course and following His due order of the priesthood. God says that the priesthood did not disappear when Jesus came, but that it did change. We still need a priesthood to serve God the right way, so what changed? Jesus came to give us a new law in Himself to reflect Him. In Jesus we receive a new law of grace and truth that is part of a new covenant and new way to serve God. This all changes how we serve God as we relate to His divine work in us.

The Levitical priesthood: An earthly priesthood that could not perfect faith because the law brought sin to remembrance (Heb. 10:3).

• Levitical priests served God in a physical temple with physical tools at a physical altar.

The Melchisedec priesthood: A heavenly priesthood that reciprocates the completed picture and fulness of Christ. Our faith functions with Jesus’ knowledge to perfectly reflect Him.

• God gave us a new spiritual priesthood in Jesus. Our bodies are the temple of the Holy Ghost and we serve God in this spiritual temple with Jesus’ new spiritual tools at His spiritual altar (1 Cor. 6:19; Heb. 13:10).

The major difference between the Levitical priesthood and the Melchisedec priesthood is that under the law a person follows the convictions of their conscience that is burdened with sin. This mindset was ingrained by the fall of Adam. Because of sin a person knows he has to have a power to govern his appetite and chooses the law as his governor.

And it’s true, God gave the law to show us that the nature of man must be changed. The law promises to cage our appetite, but does not provide for our freedom in Christ. We can understand the gift we have in Jesus as He now governs us by His new law of grace and truth (Jn. 1:17). The anointing is now our governor and that’s why we now follow a new law.

The change in the law changes what we preach. This is not preaching forgiveness versus sin, but rather preaching Jesus in place of Moses. It is believed that preaching against sin will produce righteousness in a person, but this is not true. The heart is changed when we function in the new priesthood with Jesus, preaching His foundation of truth.

I’d like to take a quote from the EVA Terms Glossary that comes with the IDCCST Course to again get at how God differentiates the priesthood of Levi from the new priesthood of Jesus Christ.

The priesthood of Levi centered on offering the sacrifices of blood in the temple. Jesus Christ set a pattern for a new priesthood in His new covenant. The priesthood of Jesus Christ centers on the knowledge of redemption for which he shed His own blood.

Here are a few verses from the Terms Glossary about the priesthood to help get familiar with it:

1 Peter 2:5
Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.

1 Peter 2:9
But ye are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation, a peculiar people; that ye should shew forth the praises of him who hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light;

Revelation 1:6
And hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

In these verses God unfolds another change. Rather than selecting from one tribe for the priesthood, we are all priests. And just like the priests who served under the law of Moses we too have responsibilities to uphold to remain in God’s presence.

Let’s read this part again:
“The priesthood of Levi centered on offering the sacrifices of blood in the temple.”

Do you see the active word “offering”? This points to an activity. The word priesthood is linked to duties that please God and these duties restore the soul (regeneration) and cleanse the conscience (renewing of the mind) which couldn’t be done in the old covenant under the law of Moses.

The word “duty” is one of those words that when it is misunderstood, it turns a believer off. You will hear many ministers insist that their faith is not duty bound. For them, duty means “forced”. The word “duty” to God means that He sanctified the activity of our faith that gives us free access to Him.

The covenant of Moses addresses the ignorance of man, but the covenant of Jesus Christ addresses the glory of God inscribed in our hearts. God let us know that we please Him when we observe His covenant, but when we transgress the terms of His covenant we do so because we are seeking another way, another avenue for our peace. This means that we are denying Christ, we are denying the access God gave us to Him.

2 Kings 18:12
Because they obeyed not the voice of the Lord their God, but transgressed his covenant, and all that Moses the servant of the Lord commanded, and would not hear them, nor do them.

It’s crucial that believers understand that:

1. The pattern is already set and we don’t have to come up with new ways (using the heart as a compass) to connect with God.
2. The priesthood is for all believers.
3. priesthood = upholding the terms of Jesus’ covenant = salvation

The priesthood of the old covenant was through Aaron but God first separated and anointed a steward called Moses. What did Moses receive when he was up in the mount with the Lord (Ex. 24:18)? He received knowledge concerning the due order and process of offering sacrifices; the due order and construction of the tabernacle, and the law and commandments the people were to observe and do.

There was perfect weight, measurement and rule in this plan and everything had to be done according to God’s will. Moses’ stewardship was linked to the priesthood. If the anointed steward is absent, so also is the priesthood. What I mean by that is that the priesthood loses the eyes of discernment in the absence of God’s steward and returns to create idols. We read in Exodus 32 how the children of Israel turned aside quickly out of the way which God commanded them. They turned back to their idols and corrupted themselves.

Exodus 32:1-2
¹ And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for as for this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.

² And Aaron said unto them, Break off the golden earrings, which are in the ears of your wives, of your sons, and of your daughters, and bring them unto me.

Another example is found in Judges.

Judges 2:19-20
¹⁹ And it came to pass, when the judge was dead, that they returned, and corrupted themselves more than their fathers, in following other gods to serve them, and to bow down unto them; they ceased not from their own doings, nor from their stubborn way.

²⁰ And the anger of the Lord was hot against Israel; and he said, Because that this people hath transgressed my covenant which I commanded their fathers, and have not hearkened unto my voice;

The pattern God shows us is clear and God is true to Himself in which He anoints a steward which brings believers out of bondage to be joined to Him through a covenant and priesthood.

In 1981 Jesus revealed to Apostle Eric vonAnderseck the condition of the church in a divine dream. Apostle Eric saw a large prison house and as he walked with Jesus through the prison, Jesus showed him how each cell represented a different denomination of the present church system. Jesus showed Apostle Eric how to open the doors to let the prisoners go free.

Here’s a link if you’d like to watch the video: https://youtu.be/ScPnO2hiAKA

We are now in the season where God has restored all of Jesus’ covenant, stewardship and priesthood and believers are being freed from the bondage of the false religious system. The priesthood is designed for your relationship with God to contain all that He placed in Jesus for your salvation.

If you’re ready to serve God according to the priesthood of Jesus Christ to have God’s work in you begin, I encourage you to start the IDCCST Course. There you will learn all about Jesus’ covenant and priesthood along with more detail about the importance of Melchisedec.