A day of Atonement

Leviticus 16:21-22 And Aaron shall lay both his hands upon the head of the live goat, and confess over him all the iniquities of the children of Israel, and all their transgressions in all their sins, putting them upon the head of the goat, and shall send him away by the hand of a fit man into the wilderness: And the goat shall bear upon him all their iniquities unto a land not inhabited: and he shall let go the goat in the wilderness.

                As I said yesterday, I have been reading through the book of Leviticus over the past couple of days.  I am amazed at how detailed God was with how the Israelites were to perform their sacrifices and go through their cleansing.  God leaves nothing to be speculated about. 

                In chapter 16 Moses describes the Day of Atonement.  This day happens once a year when the High Priest goes into the Holy of Holies and presents the sacrifice to God.  It is a time when all of Israel confesses their sins and when the sins are put on the one goat and he is sent far away.  As I read this verse, I was reminded of the verse in Psalm 103:12 that says: “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath he removed our transgressions from us.”  This Day of Atonement was set apart so that the Israelites would cast all of their sins at God’s feet and He would get rid of them forever.

                As believers we don’t have a Day of Atonement.  Instead we have the ability every day to approach the throne of grace and repent.  I wonder how many of us do not take advantage of the time to truly talk to God and really repent.  As you go to the Lord in your quiet time, remember that you go unclean, but that through the blood of Christ you have been made pure in God’s eyes.  He has truly sent those sins away “as far as the east is from the west.”

The Sacrifice for Love

Over the past couple of weeks, I have been reading through the books of the law in the Old Testament.  It is amazing to me to see how meticulous God was in telling the Jews exactly what they could and could not do.  There were specifically things that they could eat and other things that they couldn’t eat.  When we look at what the Jews were told they couldn’t eat and couldn’t touch, many of these items were filled with disease and if not taken care of properly, would cause them to become sick.  

One of the interesting components of the law, is all the sacrifices that had to be conducted.  In Leviticus chapter 9 Moses takes the Israelites through the first real sacrifices in the Tabernacle.  This was where the first blood was spilled symbolically in the Tabernacle for the sins of the nation.  As I was reading this I noticed the correlation between the blood of the perfect lamb that was spilled in the Old Testament and the Blood of the LAMB, Christ Jesus, in the New Testament.  It is very hard to understand why a God would send his son to die for mankind unless we understand the penalty for sin. 

                Sin is the breaking of God’s commandments.  Mankind is inherently sinful.  When man sins just once, then he is doomed to death and eternal separation from God.  God didn’t and still doesn’t want to be separated from man.  Thus he demonstrated his love for us.  In the Old Testament, he gave an example of what must be done for man when they sinned.  Blood had to be spilled.   That blood of the lamb wasn’t what saved them from ultimate death.  It was a foretelling of what was to come.  Christ came so that he could be the LAMB and his blood would be spilled for all mankind.  If man just would repent and believe, then they will be saved.  How many people do you know who are separated from the love of God?  How about you?  Is sin blocking you from His love?  If you will confess with your mouth that you are a sinner and in need of a Savior and proclaim that Jesus is Lord, then you will be saved.  Won’t you do that today?

               

Is He Your God?

Genesis 24:12 And he said, “O Lord, God of my master Abraham, please grant me success today and show steadfast love to my master Abraham.” (NLT)

                Growing up in a house of 11 kids is an experience.  We were raised to understand the Bible and to follow God’s laws.  It wasn’t until I was much older though that I was able to take ownership of who GOD was for me.  For many years I saw God as a disciplinarian.  As I grew older God became more real in my life and I began to realize that God was so much more than that.  When He created man, his desire was not to be a ruler or disciplinarian.  Instead, he wanted to be in a relationship with us.  We broke that relationship when we sinned.  God then provided a means for man to still have a relationship with Him in the form of His Son.  The problem for so many is that we don’t see past our sin to a loving father.  We keep feeling that we must continue to be punished for our sin and we can’t see that God has already forgiven us for it.  The verse for today reminds me that so many times when we pray to God, we don’t look at him as our savior, but instead he is someone else’s God and we are just talking to Him with hopes that He will help us because of their relationship.  The awesome thing is that because of Jesus Christ, we can take ownership of the relationship with God and we can approach Him on our own.  What a magnificent way to start the day, worshipping YOUR heavenly Father!

A Promise

Genesis 9: 15 And I will remember my covenant, which is between me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
Have you ever made a promise to someone? Have you kept it? I made a promise to my wife that I will love and cherish her until death do we part. I have made a promise for other things as well. Many of those things I wonder if I have truly kept. Do I always love and cherish my wife?  There are times that we have an argument and I have to will myself to love her. There are times in all of our lives that this has happened. The unique thing about God is that He always keeps is promises. Sure, there are times when there are floods, but God has not flooded the earth again. This was one of the first promises God made to man. This is a promise that He has never broken. I wonder if we look at our lives and we think back at all of the promises that we have made to God, how many of them will we have broken. Today, think of all God has done for us and the promises that he continues to keep, and think of what you can do for Him.

Your Epitaph

Genesis 5:1a This is the book of the generations of Adam.
Genesis chapter 5 is an area of the Bible that is sometimes very to read. It gives a genealogy of Adam and the initial history of man. The thing that fascinates me about genealogy is how it shows where we have come from. The interesting thing about the genealogies in Scripture is that they all point to Christ and vice verse. Not only do we see that the genealogies point to Christ, we also see a small glimpse of what humanity was like at the time. People lived many years so that man could multiply the earth. They were following the command given by God. We also see that there are people that did evil in the eyes of God, while others, like Enoch walked with God. In essence the genealogy left in scripture is an epitaph left that tells the generations to follow about them. I wonder what my epitaph will say when I die. When people look at my life in one or two hundred years what one or two sentences will be able to describe who I was? My prayer is that they will say he was a man who loved God, his family and his country. What will they say of you?

A New Beginning

Genesis 1:1 (KJV)
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.
Today is January 1st, 2011. It is the beginning of a new year. For many it is a time to look back at the past year or years and decide what we need to change or what we can keep doing the same. For others it is a time for us to begin anew. If we read Genesis 1:1 and the following verses, we see a wonderful transformation that began with a spoken word. Before we see what was created and how it was created, we must first understand the very first verse. In the beginning—this was the beginning of measured time as we humans understand it. Humanity is not infinite. This earth has a beginning. If it has a beginning, then it must also have an end. The second point and the most important point of all is the very next word—GOD. God was there in the beginning. In fact He had to be there before the beginning of measured time so that He could create the heavens and earth. So if He was there before then He has been here for an infinite amount of time. Infinite—means an un-measurable amount of time. If God is infinite, then He has had many opportunities to start again. The question then arises, why doesn’t God start over now? The world is in upheaval. There are famines and earthquakes and floods. Sin is rampant everywhere. I think that God is waiting to see if we as believers are going to make a change. Are we going to make a new beginning? Will we rise up and take a stand? Revelation 2:4-5 says this: “Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love. Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place except thou repent.” This is the year for the church to repent and begin anew. We must not forget our first love. That first love is Jesus Christ, the author and finisher of our faith. As you read this today think about what you can do to start a new beginning for the New Year. Most importantly think about what you can do for your Savior.