Show The Glory To All
In the Old Testament the priests were the ones who could come close to God. They were the only ones that could bring sacrifices for others and enter the holy places of the temple. After Jesus came all who believe in Jesus have the opportunity to come close to God and to show others God’s glory. The Bible says that today those who believe in and follow Jesus are a "Holy Priesthood" (1 Peter 2:5)
If we look at how the Old Testament priests were prepared we can see a picture of how we the priests of today can get prepared to come close to God. The priests were to be consecrated, consecrated means to be set apart as holy to be devoted to serve God. If we want to show others God’s glory we too should be set apart or different than the rest of the world and devoted to serve God. A picture of how this is done can seen in Leviticus 8.
In Leviticus 8:6 Moses washed Aaron and his sons with water. We too need a bath. All of us are dirty from sin but no amount of bathing with water will do the job. Only the blood of Jesus can wash us of our sin. So the first and most important step is to accept the sacrifice of Jesus for your sin and ask Him to be the Lord of your life.
The next step was to put on special clothes as seen in Leviticus 8:7. We too need special clothes. Special clothes are seen in Ephesians 6:11 “put on the whole armor of God”. The armor of God is the belt of truth, breastplate of righteousness, helmet of salvation, shield of faith, and shoes that are the gospel of peace. Psalm 132:9 says “Let your priests be clothed with righteousness”.
Moses was to then anoint them with oil. This anointing with oil speaks of the Holy Spirit. We need the anointing of the Holy Spirit to help consecrate us or set us apart from the world. Without the help of the “Helper” or Holy Spirit we cannot do this in our own power. The Holy Spirit is the thing that enables us to stand up to temptation, and gives us the right words to say, helps us love in a unique way, and is the only thing that will make us different than the rest of the world as we interact with others.
After this clothing was on the priests, Moses was to consecrate the priest with blood. He was to place it on their ear, hand, and toe. The blood represents to us the blood of Jesus that cleans us. You may say I thought accepting Jesus (step one) made me clean so what’s this additional cleaning? After we take a bath or shower periodically through the day we get our hands dirty and need to wash our hands. We don’t need a full bath again just our hands. Just like this as saved Christians we come into contact with the imperfect world we get some dirt on us and need a touch up cleaning. We don’t need a full bath again just a touch up. Jesus said in John 13:10 “He who is bathed needs only to wash his feet”.
We need to have help from Jesus to clean up our ears, or what we hear or listen to. What type of music do we listen to? Is it full of sexual content? What kinds of people are we listening to? Do they speak the truth or do we listen to sources of information that pollute us? Do we surround ourselves with people who speak language that is not pure? If so we need to be cleansed of this stuff.
We need Jesus to help clean what we do with our hands or how and what we work on. Is the work we do something that brings glory to God? Or are we handling something that should be left untouched? When we use our hands to go online do we go to sites that Jesus would be ashamed of? If our work and what we touch with our hands is not clean we need Jesus blood to wash our hands of it.
And last we need Jesus to help us clean up our walk. We all sometimes go off the path and stray into temptation. We need to walk close with Him and go where God sends us. When we get too far from Jesus the “light” it is hard to see what we are stepping in. So our feet get dirty and we track what we have stepped into where ever we go. Jesus was willing to clean the feet of his disciples and He is willing to wash yours. Only the blood of Jesus can clean up our walk.
In the next step the priests were to remain in the tabernacle seven days. The tabernacle is where God’s presence was. They were to spend time close to God. We too need to spend time close to God. We need to take time to read the bible. This is Gods word and through it we hear God’s voice and desires for us. We need to pray and meditate with God in this way God gets to hear our deepest desires and gets to know us better. Seven is the number of perfection or completion. We need to do this until His work in us is perfected or completed. In other words we need to always do this because we will always have some room for improvement.
Then they were to make offerings or sacrifices of sheep and cows for themselves and for others. This culture placed a great value on these animals. So the sacrifice was something of value to them. We too are to sacrifice something of value to us for ourselves and for others. This sacrifice could be money with a tithe to a church. The sacrifice could be time, or some activity we love to do. It may be giving up some time with friends or time talking on the phone to our friends and instead going out and serving others. It may be giving up time playing video games or watching TV so you can have time to read the bible or pray for others needs. We need to give up something for God that has value to us. Giving up something that does not have value is not a sacrifice.
The fact is that what ever we give up seems to have value now. When we give up this stuff we often find that it is of little true value. Paul said he gave up a life where he had a high position and after saw it was all just garbage.
When they sacrificed animals they placed it on the alter and it was consumed by fire. This was a “sweet smell to the Lord”. In this sacrifice the flesh was consumed. It says in Romans 12:1, 2 we are to “present our bodies as living sacrifices”. Romans 8:8 says “those who are in the flesh cannot please God”. We need to sacrifice our selfish lusts of the flesh and let it be consumed and this will be sweet to God. The end of yourself is the beginning of God.
When all this was done Moses and Aaron blessed the people. It says in Leviticus 9:23 Then the glory of the Lord appeared to all the people. I think this is really cool. All the people saw it!
So how does this apply to us? We too need to set our selves apart from worldly things and then bless others. When we do this then those who can't see Jesus for who He is can get a glimpse of His glory reflected by us in the way we love, sacrifice, and care for others like He did.
So do you have a friend that doesn't know Jesus and can't see the truth in the Gospel message? And you are wondering why they don't get it. Well maybe it's because you are a poor image of Christ. After all we are to be the "body of Christ" as it says in 1 Corinthians 12:27. And what they see in your walk and your behavior is how Christ is being pictured for them.
Here is the last of the blues posts for a little while. This one is Albert King another of the icons of blues guitar. This is a nice soundboard recording of Albert the self proclaimed "Godfather Of The Blues" with a full horn section. Pretty nice stuff! The set list was incomplete so this is as good as I could do, if you could help we would all be thankful.
