Monthly Archives: November 2013

Sex God Detests

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Love Hate

Today’s Devotion: Leviticus 19

Now I have your attention right? Sex sells – will it increase readership of my blog?

Well that is certainly not my motive. I have blogging on this site since early July 2013 and it just so happens that my scripture today is getting my Monday off to a eye-opening start.

God detests is a pretty strong, straight forward, uncompromising word and there are several instances that He uses that word through scripture. The word itself means to feel abhorrence of; hate; dislike intensely. That’s as direct as I think God gets about certain sexual acts. Leviticus 19 spells it out clearly and as I was reading I was not in disagreement with Him. Part of me thinks He doesn’t even need to spell it out in such detail, it seems pretty obvious. Then again, if he wants to get His point across, I guess it makes perfect sense that God doesn’t want to leave any margin for misinterpretation. Do you agree? If you do, then I will complete this post with that assumption.

I get all the don’t have sex with brothers, sisters, father’s, mother’s, aunts, uncles, etc., but in light of today’s controversy – of the 30 verses in Leviticus 19 – there is only one time that God uses the word, “detestable” and that is verse 22 ” ‘Do not have sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman; that is detestable.”

I have friends who are homosexual. I can say with all of my heart I love these people. They are the funniest, friendliest, heartfelt people, but their lifestyle is not of God’s design. I see this no differently than I would see adultery, polygamy, or any other lifestyle that exists outside of God’s will. The thing is that our government isn’t being petitioned to legalize adultery, polygamy, incest, or the like.

So I’m not going to continue on with a sermon and my intention isn’t to stir up a debate, but I will say this… God is very clear on how He wants us to conduct ourselves sexually and this chapter sums it up pretty well. With a burden on my heart I pray that all people would seek to understand why God feels so strongly about this lifestyle and honor Him.

I also say that we, as Christians, have a responsibility to love people. We are all sinners in God’s eyes, one sin isn’t different from another and since we are not perfect (Romans 3:23), we have no right to judge the way others live. However, God sent His Son, Jesus, to seek and to save those who are lost. Let your lives model the goodness of who God is and love others as yourself – inspiring others to rebuke this detestable sin.

I Am Free

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happy

Today’s Devotion: Leviticus 17

These instructions were not for Moses and Aaron alone, but they were also for the sons of Aaron and for the entire nation of Israel. It is obvious that God is reaching now into the personal and private lives of the people. He not only made a difference between the clean and unclean animals in chapter 11, but now He puts down the regulations by which they were to eat the clean animals. In other words, the lives of His people are to be different from that of non-believers.

What is this saying about our lives? How is our life different from others? I guess that all depends, right? It is one thing to say we are believers, but another to act like we are. The single greatest differentiator is that we believe Jesus died on the cross to cover our sin where His blood was shed for us. We live out that belief in the way we conduct our lives – surrendered to a Holy God who provided that forgiveness to undeserving souls, like ours.

Leviticus 17:14, “Because the life of every creature is its blood. That is why I have said to the Israelites, ‘You must not eat the blood of any creature, because the life of every creature is its blood; anyone who eats it must be cut off.'” Once again, the tie to the New Testament is evident. The life of the flesh is in the blood and Jesus is saying that we are to accept His shed blood for our sins in faith and then we receive life. Jesus shed His blood and gave His life. The life is in the blood. Without it, we are cut off from God, prohibited from ever entering heaven.

This is a great, eternal truth. This explains why Abel’s sacrifice was more excellent than Cain’s. It is the blood that makes an atonement (a covering) for the soul. The blood of Christ is the only thing that can wash away sin. There is nothing offensive about the blood; the offense is in our sin.

Here I sit on an early Saturday morning trying to put this into perspective and make it comprehensible for my own mind to grasp. I conclude that this message is a reminder that God was trying to protect the Isrealites from themselves. If left to ourselves, we are also vulnerable and He wants to protect us too. Another one of the many reasons to honor God with our lives. I value that God’s Word has given me/us this perspective to begin our day. I am free to live!

The Great Cover Up

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Today’s Devotion: Leviticus 16

Sounds like some kind of scandal doesn’t it? Nah, just a catchy title, but with great significance none-the-less. Today we have a break through. The past few days have been a bit ‘odd’ – to say the least. Today is a whole different story and one that gives me pep in my step. It’s like another celebration – a reminder of God’s goodness.

The Day of Atonement pointed to Christ and His redemption as did no other sacrifice, ceremony, or ordinance of the Old Testament. It reveals Christ, as our Great High Priest, going into the Holy of Holies for us. The word for “atonement” is the Hebrew kaphar, which means “to cover.” God did not take away sins in the Old Testament; He covered them until Christ came and removed them.

Remember the game of peekaboo? The game where you magically “disappear” behind your hands and as soon as your hands move the baby giggles. I love that! I’m smiling as I type recalling how easily babies can be tricked and that unforgettable baby laugh. I am using this childish game to bring home a very important point: When God says he covers them up… He covers them up. No game playing with God – this is the real deal.

In chapter 16, God gives the instructions to make sure Aaron (the priest) follow the proper protocol. In doing so and the sins of the Israelites are covered for an entire year. We are so blessed to have Christ, who covered our sin yesterday, today, and forever. We are covered!

Yet my heart is heavy for those who “think” that they are in, when, in fact, life has been like the devil’s big game of peekaboo. They go to church, hear the gospel and they go through the religious rituals and motions, but wind up going back into the world living like there is nothing significant about it. Please pray with me today for five people who don’t have a fully surrendered life, who need the Lord, and can see that the world is not a place that they will find salvation. Unfortunately, that stuff is not a game.

Secret Sin

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Today’s Devotion: Leviticus 15

Oh boy! This chapter is a dusey. As I’m reading, I’m thinking, “How do I create a blog over this one – this stuff makes me uncomfortable?” Then, it occurred to me – it’s private and personal, not something people talk about open and freely – it is uncomfortable! I believe God is pointing out that there are some things that each one of us deals with that we keep to ourselves, namely sin.

So let’s go there, let’s call it out. I’m sure that most of our sins are kept a secret from the outside world. After all, nobody wants to be known as a thief, rapist, liar, adulteress, gossip, or murderer. You know what I’m talking about, those skeletons in our closet.

God wants us to be aware that even our secret sin needs to be dealt with. He is fully aware that they are there and if we try to hide them, especially from Him, we are only kidding ourselves. We need to come clean and deal with them. The apostle Paul says that we are in bondage or slaves to sin. Slaves are trapped and we, as slaves, are controlled by sin, but worse, when we sin we are further hunted or in bondage to guilt, grief, depression, regret, anger, paranoia and pain. Then we act it out through more sin; rage, withdrawal, addiction, short tempers, etc. It’s a perpetual cycle of ugliness until God is allowed in to clean our mess up.

So as uncomfortable and seemingly odd that this chapter would be in God’s Word, I can see now that He wants us to recognize that He is aware of every dirty one of our sins and we are only kidding ourselves to think we can continue living that way. There is no such thing as a secret sin so come clean with God and let Him make it right.

Wash Up – Get Clean

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Today’s Devotion: Leviticus 14

All these offerings speak of Christ, through whom the cleansed leper is acceptable to God. There is nothing special about him just because he is a cleansed leper. Too often we see Christians who feel that somehow they are different and special. They withdraw from the others and think they are better than the others. My friend, we each must come just as all the rest come. Everyone must be acceptable to God through Christ. We each need to be washed.

When I was younger, we used to attend church wearing our Sunday best. My mom was especially picky that we dressed to be presentable to the Lord. We were constantly reminded to make sure we were clean.

“Make sure you wash your face,” She would remind my brothers.

One morning we were on our way and before we even got to the end of the driveway she looked into the rearview mirror and saw remnants of breakfast on my brothers cheeks. She pulled over to the side of the road, grabbed him from the back seat, marched him down to the creek next to the road and smeared water all over his face. I don’t think my brother ever left the house with the dirty face again!

Being clean before God was important to my Mom. It wasn’t that this added to our salvation or gave us favor in God’s eyes. It was about being respectful and honoring Him. Yet, we weren’t clean. We are far from clean and there is nothing in us or about us that we can do on our own to make us Holy and acceptable to God.

Chapter 14 takes our leprosy story and references our homes; our homes, in this context, is our bodies. Just as my brother was told to wash up and be clean before God. Chapter 14 is God’s way of showing us that He needs to be the one who does the cleaning. Not only will He transform us from the inside out, but He took our sin on the cross and removed it permanently. That is if we have surrendered our will (to do it ourselves) over to Him, allowing Him to take our sins away.

 

You’re Sick! Get To The Doctor

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Sick

Today’s Devotion: Leviticus 13

Before the invention of remote controls, I would fight my way for that television dial every day after school to watch Little House on the Prairie. There was something about Laura Ingalls Wilder (Melissa Gilbert) and those braids that made me nuts – I loved that show. I used to imagine what it would be like to get sick back in those Little House days. Poor Doc would pull up in his fancy carriage and wrap a wet, white cloth over their foreheads and pray. He was limited in what he could do without a modern-day, high tech, super sterilized surgical practice.

Going back hundreds of years to the days of Moses. Reading Leviticus 13 reminded me of Doc, but in this chapter the mighty physician was the Priest. Wow! Talk about wearing many hats. The thing is that the book of Leviticus is a book about sin and God is showing us that Leprosy and running issues of the flesh shows the exceeding sinfulness of sin and the effect of sin in action.

No man ever went wrong overnight. Leprosy did not kill in a day—it is not like a heart attack. The leper’s life was a walking death. Just so, the sinner is also dead even while he lives. It is obvious from these passages that the raw flesh is the old nature which was judged on the cross. When it manifests itself in a believer, God must judge it. The flesh can never please God; only that which the Holy Spirit produces in the life of the believer is acceptable to God.

Two things jump out at me in Levitius 13. The number of times you read the word “Isolation or Isolated” and the phrase, “The priest will pronounce him clean.” This is sin! Sin isolates us from God and is a growing, disease that corrupts our lives. While Christ covers that sin and pronounces us “Clean!”

Oh Friends. What a glorious story of hope buried between the ‘not so obvious’ message hidden in Leviticus chapter 13. It’s a beautiful picture of what Christ has done for us and the gruesome hopeless, loneliness, isolated, withdrawn, lost place we will be without Him. It’s a perfect day to check your spiritual temperature and recognize who your Holy healer is.

Not So Sweet and Cute

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Sinner!

Today’s Devotion: Leviticus 12

In the preceding chapter we saw the contamination of sin by contact. The external character of sin was emphasized—we live in a world of sin. This chapter places the emphasis on the internal character of sin. We are sinners by birth and this chapter is about the transmission of sin by inheritance.

If you have children, you are able to see some of their behaviors resemble your own. Since infancy I have witnessed thousands of characteristics and qualities in my kids that mimic mine. As much as my children have minds of their own, unquestionably they have picked up attributes (good and bad) from their Dad and I.

I love tomatoes, my husband hates tomatoes. One of our daughters love them and the other despises them. I struggle with math and from a recent blog post you’ll know why I am not an Accountant professionally. One of our daughters gets A’s effortlessly in math and while her sister works in tears as she muscles through her math homework. (Helping her is her Daddy’s job.)

From facial expressions, organizational skills, cooking ability, work-ethic, passions, attitudes, and mannerisms; the list of things I see we have genetically passed on to our children is endless and sin is no exception. We look at the innocence of a child and we think that they are God’s gift from heaven. I will not argue that they are truly gifts, but they are also little sinners who grow up to be big sinners just like me/us.

I read this chapter as a call to action to all parents to raise up our children in scripture and biblical ways. Of course we know from our own sinful hearts that they won’t be perfect, but as parents we have a responsibility to give them every opportunity to learn God’s ways so that they may grow into a loving relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ. Just like our heavenly Father loves us and extends patience and grace to us, we too can offer our children the same. I believe marriage and parenting are the most sanctifying processes God created.

Having children comes with responsibility far greater than I ever imagined. Couple that with the fact that bringing children into the world means that sin will continue to pass on through the generations, just as it has since Adam and Eve. Let’s pray for parents who are raising these little sinners and let’s pray for the children that they would grow to know the Lord.

“Food” For Thought

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Food for Thought

Today’s Devotion: Leviticus 11

WOW! My mind is spinning from what this chapter means in its literal sense while seeing the spiritual side and huge underlying message that God wants us to read, hear, and apply.

First, let me say that I am impressed (and relieved) that my diet actually fits God’s criteria. I am not even remotely interested in eating reptiles, insects with jointed legs, things that slither along the ground or camels. Even the thought of it makes me uncomfortable, so if the Old Testament list of forbidden foods were applicable today, I would be just fine – Yay!

But its not that easy. What God is really trying to teach us in this chapter is that a Christian cannot mingle with the world and play with sin without becoming contaminated. There are numerous examples in this chapter of how an unclean animal cannot be cleaned and will make those who touch it, look at it, or the canister that it dies in unclean.

This is one of my struggles as a Christian. I think this is one of those things that makes us realize we need to put ourselves into this nice little bubble. Go to church, hang out with other nice Christians, send our kids to Christian schools, and not associate or participate in that ‘worldly’ stuff like those heathens. We guard our hearts against “R” rated movies, we don’t drink, swear, lie, cheat, steal, etc. I once heard the phrase, “Those Christians squeak when we walk.” YIKES!

Then there is the opposite of that over-the-top Christian life. Those who participate in everything that the world participates and there is no evidence of Christ, fruit of the Spirit, or repentant heart. To the extent that you tell people that you’re going to church and they respond with, “Really?!” As if they are in pure shock that someone “like you” has a moral side. Clearly the extreme, but do you know people like that? Sadly I do and even more sad – I have had my seasons where I’m no exception. My admission sends me right back to the foot of the cross right here and now.

I teach kids of my Sunday School class, “Christians are called to be in the world, not of the world.” In other words, we live here and we are members of our communities, neighborhoods, workplaces, etc., but we are the examples of who Jesus is as we interact in them. Jesus didn’t hide himself behind the walls of a nice, safe Christian home in a nice, safe Christian crowd. He hung out with the sinners. Difference is… He didn’t sin. He stood up for what was right, had compassion on the lost, orphaned, widowed, sick, defeated, discouraged, and broken, but didn’t compromise His heavenly calling to “fit in.”

This chapter is a reminder that God knows that sin contaminates our lives and the more we sin, the less likely we are or have the ability to be associated with Him. He’s protecting us. Even though sin is inevitable – there are those things that we just know to avoid and verse 45 says it best, “I am the LORD, who brought you up out of Egypt to be your God; therefore be holy, because I am holy.”

Undermining Authority

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Fireline

Today’s Devotion: Leviticus 10

I grew up on a farm in Northern Wisconsin. One of the strict rules of the house was that fire (matches, lighters, cigarettes, etc.) was forbidden near, around, by or in the barn. Hay is highly flammable and will ignite spontaneously. I don’t know if you ever had the opportunity to witness a barn fire, but it is as bad as having a gas tank on fire – it is impossible to put out and the collateral damage is too massive to imagine.

Leviticus 10 reminds me of a time when my brother and his friend, Scott, took some of my grandpa’s cigarettes and went out behind the barn for a little “experimentation.” My friend, Kelly – Scott’s sister, and I caught them, grabbed the cigarettes and ran to the house to tell our parents. Those boys got in big, big trouble. Not only for smoking cigarettes, but for smoking cigarettes by the barn. The unthinkable no-no in that day.

Right out of the gate in chapter 10 verse 1 Aaron’s sons Nadab and Abihu took their censers, put fire in them and added incense; and they offered unauthorized fire before the LORD, contrary to his command.

You just have to know this is going to end badly.

Verse  2, “So fire came out from the presence of the LORD and consumed them, and they died before the LORD.”

Not only did these boys break the rules, but they mocked God. For the entire book of Exodus and the first 10 chapters of Leviticus we have read about every facet about the tabernacle, etiquette, order of things, symbolism, formality, significance, and expectations; I had to ask, “What were they thinking?”

It’s the same question my Dad asked my brother that day. Regardless of their answer, their was eminent punishment. This is too serious a crime, far too disobedient to go off without a cost. In Leviticus chapter 10, that cost was their lives.

There is tremendous truth for us to draw from this incident. These men came to God on their own. They were willful and this was blasphemy. God judged them. Furthermore, there is a wonderful lesson for you and for me. When we come to God, we must come on His terms. This is not an arrangement which we can make. We are not making the rules. God is the One who deserves to be honored; not only is He our creator, but our savior. Acting out to test God or sin deliberately is not wise for us to do. I think Nadab and Abihu gave us a very clear picture and learned a hard lesson NOT to undermine God.

 

His Glory, Glorified!

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Glory

Today’s Devotion: Leviticus 9

Leviticus verse 6: Then Moses said, “This is what the LORD has commanded you to do, so that the glory of the LORD may appear to you.”

Does the glory of the Lord still appear to us? We see that the glory of the Lord is everything that makes God, God. All His characteristics, authority, power, wisdom—literally the immeasurable weight and magnitude of God—are contained within God’s glory. Nothing is hidden or held back!

So does the glory of the Lord still appear to us? I say, “Yes!”

What do we have to do to see God’s glory? I think Leviticus 9 gives us a map to how we see God’s glory. I believe it is summarized by these 3 offerings: First, repent of your own sin, then forgive others of their sins, and pray for your relationship to grow in God and with others. Aaron took the first offering, the calf, and sacrificed for his own sin, then the goat offering to cover the people’s sin, and finally the ox and ram for the fellowship offering.

I think this is a really simple equation to what God desires for us to live out our time here on earth. He wants us to be connected to Him, point others to Him, and have a relationship with Him and others. His glory is all around us. Romans 1:20 says, “For since the creation of the world His invisible attributes, His eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood through what has been made, so that they are without excuse.”

I recommend we pause for a second and think about what that means for us to day. What do we need to take to God in prayer as our sin offering (confession and repentance)? What can we pray about for others and ask God to help them with their burdens and needs, and what can we do – with God’s help – to deepen our relationship with Him and others that would glorify God?