FIGHT OR FLIGHT (Leviticus 26_

 When you've watched as many cop and detective shows as I have, you know one thing: flight is the surest sign of guilt. 

What I didn't know was that the Bible said the same thing. You'll run scared even when no one is chasing you. (Leviticus 26:17) God was describing the behavior of people when they broke the law. 

On Saturday, the nurse scolded me. She said I make too many demands about unimportant things, that prevent the aides from taking of real problems. Like people who fall when they get up--but insist on standing anyway. 

Scold me, and I freeze. I don't runaway; I try to hide. When I've done wrong, I'm more likely to try to hide my misdoing. I guess that's one way to run scared, before anyone is aware of my misdeeds. Instead of looking innocent, I make myself look guilty.

Others, when reprimanded, don't accept the reprimand; they don't believe they are guilty. They're likely to repeat the behavior, more outrageously next time. Of course, that doesn't work either.

The class fight or flight reaction to danger.

Pretending we don't sin only brings heartache.

God's solution? 

"If they confess their sins. . .I will remember my covenant."  

When we sin--don't run away. Don't fight.  Just confess our sin to God, and move on. 

GOD'S TENANT FARMERS (Leviticus 25)

Make no mistake about it.  In God's economy, God owns us. He bought us with a price. Jesus traded His death for ours. The only choice we have is whether we accept the purchase or not; we can refuse it.

That thought came to me in reading Leviticus 25 this morning. In it, God says, "The land cannot be sold permanently because the land is mine and you are foreigners—you’re my tenants."  Later He says, "Treat him as a hired hand," in prohibiting slave trading between Israelites.

Every fifty years, Israel celebrated the year of jubilee.  Land was returned to ancestral owners, and slaves were set free. 

I am God's tenant. What on earth does that mean? A few thoughts:

• God provides what I need to work. 
• I should hold onto things lightly. They don't really belong to me, in any case.
• God expects us to maintain and improve what He gives to us.
• I should treat others as fellow tenants--I am no better nor worse than they are. We have an equal position before God. 
• God expects a return on His investment. He expects farmers to sow seeds and harvest. He expects teachers to teach. He expects writers--gulp--to write and share what they have written. 

As God's tenant, what do you feel He is asking you to do today?

NO ESCAPE (Leviticus 23)

Wherever you live, it is a Sabbath to God. (Leviticus 23:3) 

We can't get away from God.  He is the Omni of all omnis, omnipresent (everywhere), omniscient (all-knowing) and omnipotent (all-powerful). 

God's presence is a two-edged sword. He travels with us whatever road we venture on. When we find ourselves in the deepest pit (whether our own fault or not), He is there with is. I cling to that faith as I sense I am about to undergo another valley.

The other side is--we can't find someplace private to sin. We can't go into our rooms, lock our doors, shut the blinds, and hope that God won't see us. 

The point God makes in this passage is simple: wherever you live, you still must obey Me. My rules don't change when your address does.

God wants me to be light and salt, a witness, a servant, here in this nursing home. 

I should be the same person at church, at home, in my bed and in the kitchen, in front of the television set or writing a devotional. Consistency.

Purity is a word the Bible uses to describe it: 100% commitment. No pretense when it comes to our faith. No change or alteration. 

Does this mean God demands perfection? Not really. John's letter says that is we say we have no sin, we're lying.  

What God does want is a heart after God, like David had.  He was a murderer and an adulterer - but he loved God with all his heart. 

That's what God wants from us. Not our perfection but our love, our focus. 

Holiness grows out of that relationship.

SPECIAL TREATMENT (Leviticus 21-22)

Today I finally realized something about Leviticus. The theme of the book is, obviously, "Be holy for I am holy."

The whole book--all of the regulations concerning offerings and food and sex and behavior--boils down to one thing: This is what being holy looks like. It's not an exhaustive list. Maybe that's where the 613 rules of the New Testament came from; they wanted to be sure they acted in a holy manner, as God commanded.

Today chapters 21-22 offered a number of interesting discussions on holiness, but this one especially caught my eye. Treat him as holy.

The "him" is a priest, and the reference is sandwiched between a prohibition against marrying a divorced or widowed woman and punishment for a daughter who turns to prostitution.

Under the new covenant, all Christians are priests, and the principle applies to our treatment of each other: we are to treat each other as holy.

And by the way, the priest is also to treat the offerings of the people as holy. It goes both ways.

So it begs the question, how do we treat someone as holy?

I looked up the definition for "treat" in the dictionary.

• Write or talk about
• Present artistically
• Bear oneself towards
• Deal with in a specified manner
• Deal with medically or surgically. 

Wow, I like those ideas.

Writing about and presenting artistically has a lot to say about the call of Christian writers, especially novelists like me!  In our books, we present a whole range of holy actions by holy people.

When I look at the context, the regulations here seem designed to keep temptation away from a priest.  Don't tempt him with food or sex or false worship.

Holiness extends to the family and impacts parents, inlaws, children.

And when there is a problem, with unclean acts or sin, intervene with the necessary surgery.

MOTIVATION (Leviticus 19-20)

God summarizes what He has already said in Exodus and Leviticus so far in today's two chapters--along with pausing every few verses to remind us why we should obey. Each reason is repeated at least once:

• Be holy because I, your God, am holy.
• Fear your God. I am God.
• I am God, your God.

These reasons remind of the answers God gives when we ask Him "why does evil flourish?" (Job are Habakkuk are good examples.) Because I am God and You are not.

Except God points out--I am your God. We are holy in terms of our standing; we have been set apart by God as His children.  

In Facebook speak, our status would read that we are "in a relationship."

So instead of seeing a stern God as judge He says, "Fear me. Be holy as I am. I am your God and you'll get in trouble if you disobey me," He wants me to hear, "Fear me. I have called You to be separate, part of My family. Revel in it. Learn the kingdom rules and enjoy all of its benefits."

In my prayer journal today, I wrote my motivations for obedience. 

Father, it is my delight and joy to serve You. But Your commands to obey You because You are my God leave me. . . unmotivated.

Or is it ultimately why I do obey You? Because You are my God. Because we are in relationship? If you were not my God, my very personal God, would I even care? 

I am holy because You have set me apart, but you want me to do holy. This is a case where actions are meant to reflect the truth. 

As I  follow You, stumbling along the road some times, but seeking to go where You lead--I am living a holy life, because I am living the life You have called me to. 

Holiness includes the lists of dos and don'ts. But there is so much more. 

Being holy as You are holy also means I treat others the way I want to be treated. Holiness is not a solitary act; it is a way of life that measures everything and every person I touch.

May Your light, love, truth, burn away the dross in me, that others will see more and more of Your reflected glory.

Amen.

NOT FOR THE FAINTHEARTED: INCEST (Leviticus 18)

There. I've said the word, the word that horrifies us and sends shivers and feelings of helplessness and rage through the heart of anyone who has experienced it.

And if you want to skip this one - with some personal revelations - feel free to do so. It's not for everyone, but those who need to hear it, to know their sense of something horribly wrong is shared by God--let this help. And I know you are out of there - the last I knew, one out of every four women and one out of every eight men had been abused. I've had 18 pageviews today. That means four or five people who've been sexually molested have already looked before I posted this subject.

In this chapter in Leviticus, God speaks in very specific language about sexual sin: forbidden relationships within the family, with animals, and, of course, the political hot button, homosexuality.

Today I am taking a little departure from my usual style. This chapter is difficult for me to read, not because of the boring or gruesome subject, but because I am all too well acquainted with the topic.  I was abused by my father, my uncle, my cousin, my stepfather. In fact, abuse continued at different times until I finally left home, never to live there again, after I got to college.

When I went through the deepest healing from my past, I learned a scary fact: incest is more likely to happen in highly religious families. Some men (and women too, I suppose) who believe the marriage bond is sacred, who will not violate it with an affair or divorce, somehow believe it's acceptable to harm one of their own children.

So it's also possible that an abuser or two has read my blog. And get this: I'm not here to condemn you; God's grace covers every sin and can change every heart, but you have to admit the sin first.

For those who have suffered from incest, listen to the words God uses to describe the acts: It violates--relationships, trust, your own body. It blasphemes. It's unbelievable.  It is wicked. 

God knew that incest occurs all too often. He made sure His people knew His will on the question.

He also made his feelings clear. In a rare time, instead of simply saying "I am God and I am holy, therefore do what I say," He explains His reasons for giving the commands.

Healing is a long, hard road--but God will lead you by the hand.

SIN SERVED THREE WAYS (Leviticus 16)

My son, a kosher-observant believer in his Savior, Yeshua, has told me, "There are no offerings for willful, intentional sin. The offerings are all for times when people sin without knowing it." His point was, that until the ultimate sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, God had made no provision for intentional sin.

I did read that chapter, about unknown sins, a few days ago. But thank God, I ran across this verse today: "He will make atonement for the Holy of Holies, because of the uncleanness of the Israelites, their acts of rebellion, and all their other sins." (Leviticus 16:15-17. MSG)

God gave Moses three reasons why atonement was needed:

• We are unclean. Of course, Leviticus gives us a whole host of things that make us unclean (death, bodily fluids, infectious skin diseases, etc.)  But we are born unclean, sinners by nature as well as by choice. We need atonement because we will always choose sin.
• We rebel against God. We know what God wants from us--and we choose to disobey. Look at all those "do nots" from the 10 Commandments, or how about about all the things from the old nature that we are told to get rid of?
• We sin in other ways. There are those unknown sins that God provides for. We sin by omission--when we know to do good and don't act. 

Whatever the nature of our sin, God knows us. He loves us. He provides for our atonement, so that we can be reconciled to Him. 

It was true in Aaron's day.

It is still true today. 

But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 1 John 1:7 ESV

P.S. I posted a bonus blog today about a love letter to God. Check it out below. :)  

A TALE OF TWO BIRDS (Leviticus 14)

Leviticus 14 details the offerings to be given when a person with infectious skin diseases, or a mildewed house, are declared clean. Both offerings involve two birds.

God gave the option of two doves or pigeons for those who couldn't afford a total of three lambs. Whether livestock or birds, one becomes a whole burnt offering and the second animal, a compensation offering. The priest dabbed he blood of the animal on the right earlobe, thumb and big toe.  (This is where I get squeamish and dash on ahead.)

The house offering also involves blood (of course). But there are several differences: birds are the required offering, and cedar wood, hyssop, scarlet thread, and the second bird, are dipped in the blood of the first bird.

And then . . . here is what caught my attention with a sense of relief--the second bird is released in an open field. 

Four birds brought for an offering. Three die; one is released. Why? and more importantly for the reasons of this devotional, why do I care?

A little meditation suggests several things:

• People are more important than things. The more costly offering--in terms of money and of life--celebrates the release of a person from uncleanness.
• The creation suffers when we suffer. This is not a sin offering, but for our disease. Call it an early version of animal testing, as it were. (does that make me political? LOl)
• God is sovereign. Sometimes He chooses one over the other. One bird dies, the other lives.
• With the last thought: God sometimes spares us when we deserve death. 
• When God does something amazing for us, such as healing us from an infectious disease or providing healthy housing, we should respond with an offering that costs us something. 

I pray you find these life lessons from the nuts and bolts of the law as challenging as I do. 

HUMAN TOUCH (Leviticus 13)

Today's chapter - 13 - deals with skin sores. Ouch. That's me. 

I'm not sure what the technical term is. The skin over my belly, which was cut twice for c-sections and once to remove a hernia, is stretched and prone to boils which erupt and then get infected.

If I am reading Leviticus 13 right, I would be considered "unclean." Forced to live out among the lepers. Cut off from human contact. 

To make it worse, I'm a hugger. I crave human contact. To imagine that I had to live in isolation, without physical contact. How . . . horrible.

I am grateful to live in an age where treatments are available and protective gear such as gloves and bandages prevent the spread of infection. I am thankful to live in a place where caring hands clean the boils and spread the medication over them. 

But two millennia ago, without protective gloves or access to antibacterial ointment, Jesus touched lepers. Before He healed them. Before they were ritually clean, infection free and safe for his human body.

In the words of an old song, "He touched me, and made me whole."

Had to include - I love cats!

THE HEART OF THE MATTER (Leviticus 10)

Today's reading brought me to one of those uncomfortable, I-wish-this-wasn't-there passages of the Bible: when God's fire killed Nadab and Abihu for offering strange fire.

Shades of Cain: They offered the wrong thing.

God had given extensive, specific directions for the ordination offerings. The breed, sex, age of animals. The spices. The ingredients for the anointing oil and the incense. And over and over again we read some variation of "they did all that the Lord commanded."

Aaron and his sons had just completed seven days of being closeted with the Lord in the Tent of Meeting, completing the days of ordination. Imagine the joy, the hopes, the pride mixed with humility, of that week! How they must have studied and reviewed the laws God had given them, to be sure they understood. Of all the 600,000 Israelites, God had chosen this small family unit--Aaron and his four sons--to serve God throughout all generations as a perpetual priesthood.

A high of all highs for Aaron and his sons.

The ordination week ended, they began their ministry on day eight, and right out of the gate Abihu and Nadab offered "strange fire."

I struggle to understand this. My experience with God is of Someone who looks at the heart more than what I hold in my hands, not a teacher who will rap my knuckles for passing notes in school.

And from what the Bible says over and over again elsewhere, I know the truth that God desires mercy and not sacrifice.

So why here? Why to the anointed leaders? Why after such a high?

I have to think that, the same way as I mentioned about Moses a few days ago,  God held the anointed priests to a higher standard.

After seven days of fellowship and intensive study, they knew how to present the offering. And they chose to do something different. Something not God-ordained. They more or less said, "We don't care what You say, God, we're going to do what we want to."

The question switches from "why did God send fire on them?" to "what were they thinking?"

I suspect that, after all, God did look on their hearts--and didn't  like what He saw.

EAT YOUR BREAD AND ENJOY IT

Did I read that right? After all the admonitions against offering yeast (except as the firstfruits), there is an offering that requires yeast bread?

Yup. "Along with the Peace-offering of thanksgiving, present loaves of yeast bread."  Leviticus 7:11-15

Leaven is often used to symbolize sin--thus the call for unleavened bread with the sin offerings and atonement offerings.

But obviously the issue here isn't about sin. God would never ask for sin to be an added ingredient in our offerings.  But when we make a peace offering, a "thank you" to God for what He has done for us --then the flavor, the pleasure, of yeast bread is appropriate.

This continues the thought of yesterday--there is a time and a place for everything. And a peace offering, which is not a penance, but a freewill offering out of a full heart, requires giving of those things that give us joy.

If during Lent we eat unleavened bread, on Resurrection Day, we break out the wonderful rolls and celebrate the peace His death and resurrection brought us.

Today let's enjoy one of those wonderful rolls in my logo--and think of all the wonderful things God has done for us.

IF A TREE FALLS. . . The Nature of Sin (Leviticus 4-5)

"If a tree falls in the forest, and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" The questions carries implications for observations and reality and how they are connected.

In Leviticus 4, the question could be asked, "If a person sins and there is no one to see it, is it a sin?"  The answer is an unquivocal "yes."  

"They become guilty even though no one is aware of it." 

No one--except God, that is. And He's the one we're sinning against in the first place. 

What scares me even more about the passage is the context. God is speaking to "the whole congregation." 

Later in the chapter, he mentions specific individuals who might sin:

• "anyone"
• a priest
• a leader
• any member of the community

So any individual who sins is guilty. They don't even have to know it  is a sin. No one is excused.  (Ignorance of the law is no excuse, even in God's court.)

The idea of "corporate" sin makes me uneasy. Again, I'm too American to think I will automatically agree with everyone else. 

Is corporate sin a matter of everyone passing an unjust law, a jury convicting an innocent man, a nation waging an unjust war?

Or is more a matter of individuals closing our eyes to injustice? In Leviticus 5:1, God says, "you sin by not stepping up and offering yourself as a witness to something you’ve heard or seen in cases of wrongdoing."

We don't like to bother in our neighbor's affairs. If we see a wife who appears abused . . . a child who's been bullied. . .a friend pocket a candy bar at the convenience store. . . what do we do? What should we do?

In my situation here, it means speaking up for those who can't speak for themselves. It doesn't even have to be mistreatment. It can be someone who is calling for help and is being ignored (well, that's mistreatment). Someone who has fallen or who is going into diabetic shock. A dozen things may happen in any given day.

Which is the reason why I speak up when my needs are ignored . . . because I speak for those unable to speak for themselves.

Where does reporting wrongdoing end and grace begin? How do we decide? 

But neither ignorance nor silence are acceptable. 

THE RIGHT SEASONING (Leviticus 2)

I confess, I always take a deep breath and pretty much hold it until I finish reading the book of Leviticus. The nuts and bolts of the law generally bore me.

So when I turned the page from Exodus to Leviticus today, I asked God to especially open my eyes to what He wanted me to see and to share with you.

Given the name of my blog, "My Daily Nibble," a chapter on Grain Offerings certainly is appropriate inspiration.

Verses 12-13 caught my attention. In them, God gave three instructions about seasonings:

1. Don't add yeast or honey to grain offerings which will be burned. Don't offer them as a "pleasing fragrance."
2. Do add salt to every grain offering.
3. Honey and yeast are acceptable offerings as first fruits. 

Does anyone out there watch "Chopped" (or any of the other competitive cooking shows)? Over and over again the judge cut chefs for not using the right seasonings.

You could say God gave the recipe for which seasonings to use for success.  He didn't disapprove or dislike honey and yeast. He only set up regulations for how and when they enjoyed. That sounds like a few other things--like sex and money. Good, pleasing gifts from God--when enjoyed at the right place and time. 

Different seasons for different seasonings.

Different gifts for different people too. I might be "honey" (people call me "nice" and my writing "sweet"). You might be "salt." The fact God is using you all over the place today doesn't mean I don't have a place of service in His kingdom. My role is unique, and so is yours. 

Ask God for advice about the right seasonings for your life and ministry.