A Blasphemer, me?

We all know that blasphemy is one I those uuuuhhhhh/gasp/ooohhh sins we read about in the bible. However, we see the clear cut consequences of blaspheming in Leviticus 24. Being the nerd that I am I started doing a little research on the word blasphemy and once again the Lord illuminated the gospel of Christ in this old testament passage.

Holman's bible dictionary defines blasphemy as the "actual pronunciation of the name of God along with an attitude of disrespect.". Wow, pretty rough sounding right? To be actually speaking about God with a cold, hard heart. Makes sense then what happens to the person who commits this offense in Leviticus. They get stoned to death. It's also important to note that before the offender is stones everyone who heard the blaspheming comes and lays their hands on his head as to pass his sin back.

First off, thank you God for Jesus Christ who put us under the umbrella of Grace, otherwise the number of stones on earth would probably be limited. Secondly, when I think about being under grace it is easy to forget the magnitude of what we do every day. If we, as the church, are the bride of Christ and represent His righteousness in this dark world; we proclaim/represent/stand for The Lord Jesus Christ in all we do. Pretty much our lives are a continual pronunciation of God and what he does for us.

Now for that "gulp" moment that hit me; how many times a day do I make a comment, have a thought, or give a look that does not respect our Lord? As I have said many times on my blog, we may be the only Jesus some people ever see, and if we are not representing Him in His 100% awesomeness then we are pronunciating the name of God with an attitude of disrespect. Now, the beauty of this whole thing is we cannot represent His awesomeness without asking for His help.

I also think it is important to know that what we say and how we act can have a direct impact on people. If you see in this story those that heard this man blaspheme places their hand on his head as to pass this sin back to him. There are probably many people who look at faith the same way, in that we speak of our lives in one manner and live them in a different manner. This causes people to put their hands on our head and basically pass on a relationship with Jesus Christ.

The goodness of God is so evident here though, because while we all deserve to be stoned to death, Jesus took all of our stonings. He took them with love, not out of anything else but love for His church. All that we have to do us surrender our lives to Him.