I have been reading straight through the Bible and find myself located in Leviticus. I am praying, each time that I read, that I do not give up or become discouraged as I read things that I do not understand in this Old Testament law book.
These people had rules and regulations from a different time. Yet, even this Scripture points us to Christ. Sometimes it takes work to find the connections but they are worth it. I pray and ask God to connect things for me to help me understand how to apply this to my own life today and to see God clearer for who He truly is. One passage that really made this connection was Leviticus 4:27-31.
Basically, it speaks about someone sinning unintentionally. This would be something that I did not intend to do yet it was still a sin. The passage says once the person is aware, he is to place his hand on a goat as a sin offering and kill it. Can you even imagine that? It would be bloody, smelly, and messy and your sin caused this innocent animals death. All for something you were not even aware that you did; at least for awhile until it was made known or you realized it yourself.
Sin is serious business. Yet, when I sin today, I do not have to kill a goat. How does this even apply to me? Why do I even care?
First, I can be thankful that Jesus died once for all (Romans 6:10). It was His sacrifice that took away all my sin. That once for all sacrifice is a BIG DEAL. It appeased the full wrath of God; forever!
However, in the here and now, we must also have a hand at killing the sin that tries to reign within us. We must get a handle on it and slaughter it, just like the goat. We can do this by trusting Jesus finished work on the cross taking our deserved wrath but also taking the door He gives us to chose not to sin when tempted (1 Corinthians 10:13).
Colossians 3:5-10 states, "Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator."
We can either trust Christ to bear the wrath or we must bear it. Once in Christ, we are a new creation. We can now confess our sin and He is faithful to forgive us, restore us, and make us right again. As we are being renewed by our Creator, we will desire sin less and less but even the unintentional sin must be put to death. I am thankful that the New Testament, gave us a better way. Sin must be dealt with and taken seriously but Christ, in His love, took the full wrath of it that we deserve. This is truly a gift of the best kind.
Have you trusted Christ to take the full wrath of your sin for you?
How are some ways that you kill sin in your life?
Have you thought much about the sacrificial system, Jesus, and modern day confession of sin?
4 comments:
Sin is so real and yet we have all the tools to combat it in Christ!
Spending time daily with God is a must when dealing with sin!
So convicting. Not shed our sin like old skin, but kill it! Not a lot of room for misinterpretation. God wanted us to be wholly His!
I so love this post (does that sound weird?). It's been on my heart a lot recently that we don't take sin seriously enough if you look at all Christians as a whole.
By the way, my book is Isaiah. I'm working on my fourth complete read-through in my life and I still struggle with it. It makes me wonder if there's a reason why some people seem to understand certain books better.
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