Leviticus - Throughout this book as the author describes sacrifices, you will see the word unblemished frequently. It is important to understand that the Israelite people were offering God their best...honoring Him by give Him offerings that were as perfect as humanly possible. That's a great challenge for us to always offer the very best to God from our lives, and a picture of the perfect sacrifice Jesus had to be to pay the price for the sins of all of humanity.
Leviticus 1:4 - They place their hand on the head of the animal, and that animal becomes a vessel for their sin. A vessel that will be broken open and bled as a sacrifice for their inability to live godly lives. When Jesus was dying on the cross, he became the vessel to take on all the sins that humankind had ever and will ever commit. His body was broken and his blood was poured out to pay the price for us.
2:10 - The grain offering was a bloodless sacrifice to God. Sacrifice does not have to involve death and blood. The word sacrifice actually means "to make holy." The bloodless grain offering was given from the heart to honor God and it also helped to take care of the priests. The new testament calls us to offer ourselves as "living sacrifices" which is another type of bloodless sacrifice. We offer our lives in the honor of God and helping to take care of others.
3:17 - It is interesting to think that the Israelites kept the rule about not eating the fat all the time. It was just about going to the tabernacle...they always cut the fat away knowing that it was God's alone. So every meal they ate became a form of worship as they cut away the fat and honor God. It would be beautiful for all of us to live out the everyday, mundane parts of life as acts of worship. What can we cut away to offer to God? What simple things can we do to make every task a form of worship?
3 comments:
Why is it significant that the bread be unleavened?
Yeast is often used as an image of sin. Without yeast the bread is more pure.
-Brando
I'm starting again, reading from the beginning of Leviticus, and the whole offering part was just pouring truth into me. I can see it when they describe ripping apart the animals limb by limb and I can't help but think that that is precisely what God wants us to do with our sin. He wants us to drain it of everything, kill it, and burn it. Dissect it and leave it on the altar for Him to see. It sounds horribly brutal, but sin is deadly serious to God. He wants us to offer the remains to Him, and be open about it. Maybe thats a little far-fetched...but it made sense to me.
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