BACKGROUND
The things in these chapters are pretty straightforward. Leviticus 26 is about the blessings of obedience and warnings against disobedience.
REFLECTION
If you made it through Leviticus, give yourself a high five! If you recall, I had many false starts of reading through the Bible because of Leviticus. I just did not get its significance. I hope these posts helped you see the significance.
If you did not get through, please do not be discouraged! Just keep reading from where you last left off. If these blog posts help you, that is great! If they do not, just keep reading without them. Remember: it took me five years to read through the Bible the first time. I just kept putting a bookmark in it and would continue it when I could!
Just Remember:
God's grace is at a slow pace!
I have been through Leviticus many times, and I enjoyed it this time the BEST of all. I think having to think through a post five days a week has really helped me digest it and make it practical for my everyday life. I have been making some very good and real changes as a result. I am grateful for that.
I think it also helped to buy that model of the tabernacle! It is still sitting on my coffee table, and I have looked at it every day as I have my quiet time. It causes me to see how CENTRAL worship was to the people of Israel, and how central it needs to be in my life. The tabernacle also reminds me that Jesus made a way for us into the holy of holies. The veil was torn in two! I look at it and marvel. He is the way, the truth, and the life!
When I originally wrote this post in 2008, I was grieving the loss of a friend whom I had known since my sophomore year of college. We were both athletes at OSU together, on Navigator staff together, and then he married my twin, Mary Beth, who was grieving the loss of her Superman (his nickname). I rejoice that Jesus made a way for Bruce!
APPLICATION
To cement Leviticus in my mind, I am going to do the following:
- Give each chapter a title
- Make an outline of the book
- State a main theme
- Continue with my "Journal of God" that I started in Genesis
- Summarize what I am taking away from the book by way of application to my life.
You might like to try the same!
What is one thing you learned from the book?
PRAYER
God, thank You for teaching us more about Your holiness through the reading of this book. Help us to reflect on the lessons we have learned from it and respond to You in obedience. Speak to us, Lord, about unholiness in our lives. Make us holy for You are holy. We love You, Lord, and thank You that You have made a way for us into Your very presence through Jesus Christ, our Lord. And it is in His name we pray. Amen.
6 comments:
I'm here! For us modern day believers, Leviticus is a difficult book. It's difficult to understand the prohibitions, to picture the sacrifices. The blood alone - the idea of sacrifice - a violent, bloody act, makes it difficult. We lead very sanitized lives these days. There's so much in the book that makes me wonder why. What I got from the book, though, is that God is HOLY and we aren't. To the core we are unrighteous and different from God. Still, God seems to long for interaction with us, for our worship - to be near to us. He provided measures for the Israelites to draw near, but they point to the Final Sacrifice, Jesus. And I'm taking a long time to get to what I really want to say! I think because I'm doing the Psalms and Proverbs days and thinking about those passages more than I thought about Leviticus I am seeing more than ever before the thread that runs through the whole Bible. The realization that I am sinful and unworthy to stand before a holy God, my need for atonement, is so central to faith. I'm reading Romans right now with my daughter and it's there, too. I am thankful that I live on this side of the cross and that Jesus made it possible for me to draw near. But I think that I've failed, often, to see the holiness of God. I (and others in our day, I think) want to think about the mercy and grace but don't really understand our sin and the law that reveals it. And yet, I wonder if we can truly grasp the depth of God's mercy and grace if we don't understand how absolutely unholy we are. And I'm not sure I'm at all clear. I'll post this LONG comment and read it and may add more later.
I'm still reading! I'm a couple days behind right now, but I'll catch up. What struck me in Leviticus is the frequency of offerings and holy days. Not only were there offerings for sin on a regular basis, there were offerings of thanksgiving for harvests, offerings to redeem a firstborn, etc. etc. so that the days and years were a continuous cycle of relating to God. There were constant reminders of both the need and fulfillment of God's care and provision. There is no part of life that doesn't belong to God, and he allows us humans to participate in his holy life--he WANTS our participation. That's cool to me.
I'm reading along and loving it! :)
Leviticus showed me God's holiness and high standards as well as my huge lack of holiness and inability to meet those standards. It also impressed me with the lengths that God goes to in order to allow man to have a relationship with Him and how helpless we are to approach Him without it. And it helped me examine how I interact with others in my life.
I read a lot in Hebrews as I was reading Leviticus and could see how Jesus fulfilled the Law. And that both fascinated me and stirred my heart.
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Well, Carol, I have to post another day. I had my thoughts mostly completed and Kayla managed to delete all of it twice.
Dorothy
Oh Dorothy, how pricelessly cute! I read the first line, and I thought, "What????" That is too funny.
Thanks for the comments so far ladies, it is so encouraging to hear how God is working in our lives, isn't it?
Oh, I miss these ladies above. I meditated in the devotional book called The Reservoir. The Holiness Stream in that book scared me, but I ended up loving it! Just as I love Leviticus and the theme of holiness. God wants us to be holy because he is holy, and he wants us to live the best life possible! He knows what he is doing!
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