Are you master, king and priest?

GOD made man in His image to be kings; an image of His Kingship. He gave us dominion over every earthly thing (Genesis 2:19-20). We were created to be the masters, the kings and priests, to have dominion over the earth and even the sky.

You were the model of perfection, full of wisdom and perfect in beauty. You were in Eden, the garden of God; every precious stone adorned you: ruby, topaz and emerald, chrysolite, onyx and jasper, sapphire, turquoise and beryl. Your settings and mountings were made of gold; on the day you were created they were prepared. 

You were anointed as a guardian cherub, for so I ordained you. You were on the holy mount of God; you walked among the fiery stones.You were blameless in your ways from the day you were created ... (Ezekiel 28:12-15)

The definition of "cherub" in Hebrew is an "image" or "representative picture."

GOD gave us beauty, wisdom, and ability, to build legacies and rule those He had given us with compassion, understanding, and justice. However GOD also gave us a will to choose. Therefore He also created evil in order to give us a true choice. Pride is the highest evil to GOD. Pride is what sets us apart from GOD. Pride says the beauty and abilities that GOD created and set in us are ours because of our own efforts, to do with as we would have, instead of being consecrated to GOD for His service. Because of Pride, we are thrown down from the throne GOD made and gave us. We are no longer, masters and kings, but slaves to sin and death.

In the pride of your heart you say, "I am a god; I sit on the throne of a god in the heart of the seas."
... but you are only a man ... wickedness was found in you.
Through your widespread trade you were filled with violence, and you sinned. So I drove you in disgrace from the mount of GOD and I expelled you, O guardian cherub, from among the fiery stones.
Your heart became proud on account of your beauty, and you corrupted your wisdom because of your splendor. So I threw you to the earth; I made a spectacle of you before kings.” (Ezekiel 28:2, 12, 16-17)

John 3:6 Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the SPIRIT gives birth to spirit. (Therefore everything we do of our own strength is wickedness and pride. We are born into the world as flesh but by CHRIST's death, burial and resurrection, we are born into the SPIRIT.)

The flesh has many forms. It will not always appear evil, deceitful and ugly. It can appear, cultured, educated and even godly. It will often times play possum to make you think it is dead, but self will thrive in any soil that is not completely submitted and tilled by CHRIST. Self will always be the last idol to fall. Self love is blind, subtle and so strong it will lead a man into a fool’s paradise until GOD shines His spotlight of truth on him and spoils his vain opinion of himself. Then it is man’s choice to choose repentance. Only then through the work of CHRIST, working in and through us are we able to again be the masters, kings, and priests GOD the Father created us to be.

Rom 7:18 -19 I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do —this I keep on doing.

Read Romans 6

As we travel through life in this mixed and muddled state, our very virtues are tainted with the flesh and the touch of death corrupts all we do. Although redeemed from Egypt, through the Red Sea (a picture of CHRIST taking us through His death, burial and resurrection), we do not dwell in the land GOD set out for us; the land of milk and honey. Instead our habitat is found in wandering in a wilderness of divided affection between flesh and Spirit.

Everything we do will be a mixture of good and evil; our humility will generate pride; our charity to others will lead us to nourish our own self love; our increased prayers will cause us to value our efforts in holiness and sanctity.

We can only have victory over life if we lose it in CHRIST. (Mar 8:35 For whosoever will save his life shall lose it; but whosoever shall lose his life for my sake and the gospel's, the same shall save it.)
It is not enough to accept the work of the cross and then go on our merry way. We must submit the old man daily, to the work of the Cross. This is not to say that our salvation is in jeopardy because of our choices and actions; the new man redeemed through CHRIST’s death, burial and resurrection is forever in eternity saved to reign with Him, but while we are tied to the physical sinful nature, we must constantly submit the old man to CHRIST for Him put the old nature to death on the Cross.

Do you want to be restored to master, king and priest?
Romans 12:1 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of GOD's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to GOD —this is your spiritual act of worship.