I think today is the first time i have ever read the Leviticus passage (chapter 16) right up next to the reference of Christ's sacrifice in Hebrews (10:1-14). What a crazy cool parallel that is, and how powerful it must have been to the Jews who believed Christ at the time. Not to cheapen customs or tradition, but how freeing it must be to realize that you don't have to go through that intense process every year in order to be in God's good graces. Having not grown up Jewish, I can only imagine what the custom was like for them, based on the Scripture references we have. Yet, without going from feeling trapped to feeling free, i think i lack some of the reverence and awe and passion that the original believers must have known. I have been blessed to believe and understand Christ's message for most all of my life. I am grateful for that as i do believe that it has saved me from a lot of potential pain and frustration with life. But at the same time, I think it takes more effort for me to truly understand Christ's sacrifice when i have never known anything different! I hope to be someone who remains in awe of what Jesus did for me, and for you, and for anyone who chooses to believe! May we grow through this study and through community together, into a greater appreciation and depth of knowledge of all that God did for us through Christ!
Hope you enjoy this beautiful Fall Wednesday!
-kelly
1 comment:
There are some believers who seem to still want us to suffer literally as Christ suffered... giving up all the "good" things of this world. But how does one do that? We live in different times. Do we give up indoor plumbing because clearly Christ and the disciples had to deal without that? Cars? Conveniences of all kinds? McDonalds? But there is something to be said for branching out of our comfort zones... Sacrificing something for Jesus... otherwise how can we say how important He is to our lives? Don't we give sacrificially to support our favorite team? Buying tickets, cheesehead hats, spending hours watching them and checking the scores out in the paper...Or if our appearance is important to us; we shop for the right outfit, we spend more than we should on the best shoes, getting the right tattoo...
Don't they say "the more you learn about what Jesus did for you the more you see your own inadequacies?" or is it vice versa? I must agree with that... It's hard to put ourselves in his sandals unless we dig into scripture and his teachings and really SEEK the Kingdom of God... Otherwise we may think we're not so bad! Leviticus can remind us how bad sin is in God's eyes, while we treat it like it's no big deal...and it teaches us to not cheapen our faith...What have we done for God lately?
Post a Comment