The Lamb of God

I have been on a quest since the beginning of the year to read the bible front to back, and thanks to my handy bible app I have a pretty good guide to keep track of it. I actually use a program that is supposed to get you to read the entire bible in 90 days. I will not even get close to hitting that mark however it provides a great guide. I just finished reading the 9th chapter in Leviticus and God really spoke to me as I was sitting here rocking my 8 month old.

Through the first 9 chapters of Leviticus it talks about all the different sacrifices required. The one that really stuck out to me was the sin offering. Jesus was the Lamb of God and took the place of all of these different sacrifices, but this one really got to me. It says in Leviticus 8

"He then presented the bull for the sin offering, and Aaron and his sons laid their hands on its head. Moses slaughtered the bull and took some of the blood, and with his finger he put it on all the horns of the altar to purify the altar. He poured out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar. So he consecrated it to make atonement for it. Moses also took all the fat around the inner parts, the covering of the liver, and both kidneys and their fat, and burned it on the altar. But the bull with its hide and its flesh and its offal he burned up outside the camp, as the Lord commanded Moses." (Leviticus 8:14-17 NIV84)

This sounds like just another day at the office for the high priest. Slaughtering a bull and separating the good stuff to be sacrificed from the bad stuff to be taken outside of the camp and burned. But, as any good red blooded southern man I have actually done this same process on a deer. Let me tell you, if you have ever done this you know that it is not a quick and easy process. And to separate the fat from everything else would take forever. I think we see this for a couple of reasons.

First, I think it gives us a clear picture that our sanctification process takes time. It's not something that happens overnight. Just like for Aaron and his sons. I bet it took them a full day to do one of the sin offerings. God continues to separate the good from the bad in our lives (detail below) all the time.

Secondly, and this was what blew my mind; I think it shows exactly what happens as we go though the process of sanctification. They way that my small brain reads this is that when Aaron was going through and separating the fat from the organs he was basically saying, ok this is the stuff that will be pleasing to God and everything else needs to be disposed of. When we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior he comes in and separates the good from the bad with surgical precision. He shows us our spiritual gifts that have been given to us by God. I believe those are the good things. He also points out the sin in our lives, which is obviously the bad stuff. He takes the sin and disposes of it, through his death on the cross. He takes the good stuff and shows us how we can use our gifts to glorify Him.

My hope and prayer is that the Lord never stops cutting on me and showing me both the good and bad things in my life and how I can use the good to Glorify Him and overcome the bad.