Journaling The Bible Part Three: Leviticus

It's a good thing that my God is a God of forgiveness, because the first trimester of this pregnancy had me DOWN and I fell off of the wagon of reading my bible daily/regularly. At this rate, I have to read 6-7 chapters a day to reach the end of the bible by the time Baby Hyde arrives (if baby comes exactly on their due date). That scares me to be honest. It's so much easier to just throw on the T.V. and watch Netflix or catch up on the reality shows I forgot started up 3 weeks ago. It would be so much easier if I was just reading the bible. But God knows that I wouldn't remember as much of his word or really dig into it as much if I was just reading it. God knows that I don't learn that way. I have to be engaged in it. I have to take notes. Every Sunday I have my bible and a piece of paper ready to go for the sermon, ready to soak up as much knowledge as I can. So why would I do any differently when I'm at home studying?

Let me just say, Leviticus has been HARD. I came back from a 2 month or so break from reading and journaling and I have to jump into Leviticus. I think God was trying to teach me patience through this book, amongst other things. Genesis and Exodus were, relatively speaking, a breeze to read. The history of the people of Genesis kept my attention, were somewhat familiar stories (Adam and Eve, Noah, Joseph, etc.) and was definitely more of what I was "looking for" to start my bible journey. Exodus was all about Moses and again, familiar stories and then the building of the Tabernacle.

Leviticus on the other hand was a LOT of the same things repeated over and over. Now, I know that may sound bad, but I'm not lying. Go ahead and go read Leviticus 1-10 and you'll see what I'm saying. It was really cool to read about the different types of offerings that the Levites had to do in the Tabernacle and exactly how they had to do each type (burnt offering, sin offering, peace offering, guilt offering, and or ordination offering). Some of these details are very precise. You can only use certain animals, if you don't have those animals you can use certain types of grain. Some offerings you have to eat the animal (but only certain parts of course), other offerings you aren't allowed to eat it. It really was quite interesting to see that the Levites actually did all of these offerings and exactly as God has said to do them. Blood had to be spilt on certain area's of the Tabernacle, they could only burn certain pieces of the animal, don't spill blood on your clothes or they must be washed and will be unclean for a certain period of time. I'm certainly glad I'm not Jewish in the time of the Levites though, that is for sure.

At church on Sunday, I was still really struggling with Leviticus. I had written most of this blog post about a week or so ago, but had two chapters left and just couldn't get myself to read it. I felt discouraged knowing that these were all the old laws of Moses and didn't really apply (we'll let that one be debated). But then like God made it happen for a reason (duh, thanks God), our Producer for our worship service on Sunday morning read a devotional to us about Hebrews 10 preaching this verse; "¹⁰ For God’s will was for us to be made holy by the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ, once for all time." He then started talking about how the sacrifice of Jesus now covered all of us and we wouldn't have to make sacrifices like in the Old Testament. It was like God knew not only that I needed the reminder that Jesus paid the ultimate sacrifice for ME, but it was also that clarifying moment I needed as I finished up Leviticus and all the sacrifices that I knew were no longer applicable to our lives because of Jesus just kind of all hit me like a rock. 

So I encourage you today, if you are reading through Leviticus as a study with your bible study or as part of a sermon series, or you're encouraged to read it because of this blog post (although I find that last one highly unlikely), I really encourage you to read Hebrews 10 when you get discouraged like I was. To read it when you look down at your tattoo and know that in Leviticus it tells you not to have tattoos. When you see the sin you're committed, big or small, and remember that Jesus paid that ultimate sacrifice and you are no longer bound by that sin. Sin no longer has control over you. And you no longer have to sacrifice live stock, oils, breads, and go through all those processes, so let's just take a second to thank the Lord for that!!!

ONTO NUMBERS!

Love and blessings,
Amanda