How to be acceptable when you come before God.
Video: The Book of Leviticus by The Bible Project
Leviticus 19:1-2 The LORD also said to Moses, 2 “Give the following instructions to the entire community of Israel. You must be holy because I, the LORD your God, am holy.
Leviticus 26:11-13 I will live among you, and I will not despise
you. 12 I will walk
among you; I will be your God, and you will be my people.
13 I am the LORD your God,
who brought you out of the land of Egypt so you would no longer be their
slaves. I broke the yoke of slavery from your neck so you can walk with
your heads held high.
The story line that began in Genesis continued through the book of Exodus
and now we will see that it keeps on going through the next book. We saw in
Exodus that the people of God were redeemed
from the kingdom of darkness, they were taught how to
live to please God
and they have just built a
place to meet their God.
Now that they have a place to meet with God they need to learn how to do it, our God is not like all of the false gods that were mean and their rules
about how to relate to them were not clear. Our God gave his people the book of
Leviticus as a loving revelation of the essential requirements for his
people, as bad as they are, so they will know how to come into his presence.
God with us has requirements, it's easy to see that in the Old Testament,
but it is still equally true today! God’s expectations for his people have not become less strict just because we don't have to go to the temple and slit the throat of a perfect sacrifice from our flock and watch it bleed out. In the church age few of us consider the cost of going to worship, it is too easy to just show up without a sacrifice and expect God to be pleased.
The Holy One commands his chosen ones to be holy.
1 Peter 1:15-17 But now you must be holy in everything you do, just as God who chose you is holy. 16 For the Scriptures say, “You must be holy because I am holy.” 17 And remember that the heavenly Father to whom you pray has no favorites. He will judge or reward you according to what you do. So you must live in reverent fear of him during your time here as “temporary residents.”
The pursuit of holiness is still required as we reside in this temporary
home, progressively becoming more like our holy God, even though we will not
fully obtain holiness until Jesus takes us to our permanent home. We need to realize that God isn't expecting less of us than he did of the believers of the Old Testament.
As believers, we need to be "set apart" (sanctified) from the world, we need to be living by God’s standards, not the world’s. God knows we won't be perfect, but there should still be a distinct difference seen in us. As a holy nation of priest we need to live set apart, in the world but not of it, if we are the same as the world then the world won't see anything that needs to change in their lives.
Children inherit the nature of their parents. God is holy; therefore, as His children, we should live holy lives. We are “partakers of the divine nature” and ought to reveal that nature in godly living.-Wiersbe Bible Commentary
The culture has turned up the
anti-God indoctrination in the past few years in an attempt to silence
people that refuse to call evil as good. We will all be forced to decide which side we will be on, we will be
tempted to lower God's holy standards, just like Israel did in the Old Testament.
The New Testament requires our holiness just as much as the Old Testament. If we truly love a holy God then we will want to please him and seek to be just like him.
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A Call to Holiness (1 Peter 1:14-16)
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