Like Talasi mentioned last week, Leviticus can be a challenge to sled through as we don’t readily see the relevance and application for our lives today. But like Tal pointed out, there are things that we can learn as we consider why God chose to include this book as a part of His word for us. So I am going to chime in with another thought along those lines that struck me in the reading this week.
Nowadays it seems to me that we followers of Christ have really swung the pendulum hard to the side where we come to God so often thinking only from our perspective, and expecting that God should be more than willing to accommodate our terms. “Just as I am” is the standard that we set for ourselves and expect God to be pleased with.
And while it is true that God wants us to come to Him with our hurts, our hang-ups and problems—and though I understand that we should never wait to come to Him until we can “fix ourselves up” because we can’t improve ourselves to meet His standard anyway—sometimes I think that we forget that we do need to be learning and working towards His standards.
Leviticus is a good reminder to me of that. God isn’t haphazard in His approach. He is all in on whatever He does. And He does things at only the best and highest levels. I need to be asking God to help me move towards His standards not just expecting that He has to accommodate mine. It is my job to change towards Him, not His job to flex for me.
And because of who God is, that is not an imposition for me. I benefit when I move toward his standards and adapt myself to Him. How good God is that He would set His standards in such a way that they would benefit me. Usually, those in authority are concerned that the system need only benefit them. But God‘s system is synonymous with our best interests. How cool is that?
-Pastor Doug Baynton
(Lead Pastor)