Incest, bestiality, adultery, child sacrifice. Ick. These aren’t exactly the images we want to sit with and savor as we sip our morning coffee. And yet, to truly understand the depth of God’s grace, we must occasionally have a staring contest with our depravity. Like colors blended in an artist’s palette, God’s Word combines with our own human experience to paint a very dark portrait of our state without Christ—one that showcases that we are all capable of every sin, even the ones that seem unthinkable.
Consider the Bible in panorama. The book of Genesis shows us that sin can evolve from eating forbidden fruit to murdering your sibling in a single generation. King David’s story reveals that even men and women after God’s own heart can be overcome by desire for something that isn’t theirs. The gospels teach us that a people who have longed for a Messiah for generations will gladly execute Him when He finally arrives. While it’s true that the Bible is one long story of God’s redemption, it’s also true that God wouldn’t need to set things right so often if we didn’t set them sideways with such frequency.
Leviticus is, among other things, a book of rules. Because sin has made us naughty by nature, we don’t like rules. We can come to a chapter like Leviticus 20, which begins with rules against child sacrifice and ends with a call to stone mystics, and feel like it doesn’t apply to us. And yet, if we allow God to illuminate our heart’s true condition, we’ll see that our need for God-given guardrails remains.
Part of what makes God, God, is His holiness, His set-apartness. It stands to reason that part of what makes us God’s children is our holiness, our set-apartness. So what if Leviticus is more than a bunch of rules? What if it’s more like a map that moves us away from our rebellious nature and toward a way of living that is wholly set apart (Leviticus 20:8)? What if the message of this book is not, “Do this, not that,” but rather “Do this and live”?
When we stare down all we are capable of, when we consider just how far we are willing to go to get what we want, and just how many people we are willing to hurt along the way, when we realize that our bent is to call good things bad and bad things good (Isaiah 5:20), when our eyes are pried open by the truth about who we are without Jesus, the guardrails stop feeling like barbed wire. They become profound mercy that keeps us from driving our lives straight off the cliff.
Jesus, thank you for being a set-apart God. Thank you for rescuing me from me. Teach me to embrace your call to holiness with a joyful heart. Amen.
This devotional, whoever wrote it, was really well written. It was good
Yes!!! Thank you for pointing this out and making this relevant to todays world. It is so sad and even more scary what kids are being exposed to today. I pray that more people open their eyes to what the Bible says and look at how God wants us to live our lives. Thank you for your words.
Amen loved reading through all these tonight. Praying for your l this week.
Jennifer Anapol I echo your prayer
Thank you for sharing MERCY! You summed up exactly what I was having on my heart.
The beauty of Leviticus summed in one devotional. “Do this and live.”
I pray I would see the rules of Leviticus in a more positive light. I pray I would see them as a map to keep me on the right track. I pray that I would walk in the light of Jesus and be set apart from the world.
When reading the lovely chapter of today, this verse stopped me, Leviticus 20:27 KJV “A man also or woman that hath a familiar spirit, or that is a wizard (witches), shall surely be put to death: they shall stone them with stones: their blood shall be upon them”. And I felt prompted to share an experience. I was in Winners ( TJ Maxx in US) not too long ago looking at some planners and notebook/journals for next year, and I saw a very beautiful velvet hardbound purple cover book. It has these mystic symbols of moons and starts and it says on the cover book of spells. A mother nearby with her 7 year old daughter were looking at it, and the mom said how cool this is, you can write all your spells to her daughter. I was speechless that such a book made its way to a family store as such, and successfully captured the attention of young kids/parents as “cool”. Truly if we look, the evil is making its way to little children, in schools, stores, tvs, liberal transgender options, etc. Its detestable. I used to be a fan of Harry Potter a very long time ago (a widely popular wizard condoning series), also embracing the friendly teenage witch tv shows (aren’t all witches pictured as friendly and helpful?). I had not known any better (completely lack of spiritual knowledge) but GOD He protected me. What does God say about witches/wizards/ familiar spirits? To be stoned. But this world teaches us to be inclusive- embrace everyone, they say God is love isn’t He, shouldn’t He embrace and love everyone? No, He said to STONE THEM. Should we take a moment to reflect if God was preached wrongly to us, if the gospel has been diluted to avoid hard conversations? Yes. Praise God for SRT to include this Leviticus in the study. This is our God who is Love that says loud and clear, stone them. Let us not conform God to our own image of a grandpa floating on clouds embracing everyone (it’s distorted), but He is a fearsome God who will not tolerate evil and command to stone. God did not call us to embrace all, He calls us to come out of them, to be set apart. Not to be inclusive if that inclusiveness means His holy children mingle with the devil’s children to the point the land will spit out the people. We will get burn if we play with fire. Let us not be afraid of people and compromise/ offend God. Be afraid of God more than being afraid of people’s opinions. Be holy and be strong in our convictions. Be blessed dear sisters.