Leviticus.
The third book of the Bible. Chapter after chapter full of laws, several of which have very little implication on my life.
I don’t need to know how to offer a burnt offering. I don’t need to know when I should let my land rest for the Sabbath year. I don’t need to know if I need to bring a goat or a bull for a sin offering. I don’t need to know how to identify leprosy in my house and treat it. I don’t need to know the proper way to anoint and consecrate a priest.
What I do need to know is the unrelenting pursuit of God on the hearts of his children.
Genesis : “I created you. I want to speak to you. I want to bless you. I want to have a relationship with you.”
Exodus : “I want to protect you. I want to free you. I want to talk with you. I want to be with you.”
Leviticus : “Please. Please. I will give you every step…just follow them…and I can be with you, we can talk. Please.”
At the end of my outreach during my Discipleship Training School 4 years ago I understood God to be this : Imagine God as a friend who has these two tickets to this amazing show. A show He knows that you want to see whether you will admit it or not. He’s giving these two tickets to you. He’s offering them to you, free of charge. No strings attached. A simple gift. He gives them to you; you’re so overjoyed that you don’t realize the longing look in His eyes for you to ask Him to come with you. All His heart longs for is to be invited along.
The first three books of the Bible have reiterated this pattern not only throughout all of human existence but also in my life. How many times have I been blind to God begging me to invite Him along in the life that HE has given me.
Most people probably see Leviticus as a book that is of no use to them, I know I did. After my first read through, however, that perception shifted drastically. It became clear that Leviticus wasn’t God trying to dictate the Israelite’s lives, box them in, or make their lives a constant cycle of sacrifice, offering, and ritual in order to have the privilege being graced with His presence. N O. Though that may seem like a very plausible conclusion, I don’t believe that was God’s heart. To me, I read it as a yearning love letter. God, so infinitely holy that He can’t be in the presence of sin, is doing EVERYTHING he can to find a way to be as close as possible to the people he created without harming them.
It’s a beautiful thing to see how God thought up this whole extremely detailed and complicated system so He can just simply be with us. I see it as God’s heart aching so much to be able to love, bless, direct, help, communicate, relate to and enjoy what He’s created. Though He knew we wouldn’t be able to be perfect in executing His proposal, He couldn’t just sit back; He had to try.
It’s a picture of a God who keeps trying.
It’s a picture of a God who is relentless.
Its’ a picture of a God who loves so deeply it moves him to action.
Under My Skin 