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.