FBC Daily Devotional – April 28, 2021

Well, good morning, a good Wednesday to you here we are in the middle of the week and the last few days of the month of April and We have had some

April showers and some flowers have already appeared and more May flowers are on the way we hope we trust and Enjoy the spring weather enjoy seeing the the greenery the colors coming out and the flowers and so forth

Well in our reading today in a scripture reading plan We have been in the book of Leviticus and read chapters in chapters 22 and 23 and a couple of things

I just want to point out in that passage and in chapter 22 verses 17 and following The Lord gave had

Moses give to the people of Israel some instructions about freewill Offerings these are offerings that were not mandatory but If somebody wanted just out of thanksgiving to the

Lord gratitude to the Lord or way of just Worshiping the Lord wanted to give an offering of an animal sacrifice they could do so but there were some stipulations in that sacrifice and You could kind of understand why these stipulations might come out

Let's so let me explain. So one of the major things of course was that it had to be totally of their own free will voluntary so any

There should not be there was not to be any coercion or pressure Placed upon people to give a freewill offering.

I think by the way, this is totally an aside that's instructive for our

Contemporary giving I I think it is. I think it's terribly egregious when

Preachers pastors, whatever or Tell evangelists and so forth will

Use tactics to pressure people to give Financially to the

Lord's work. I think it's it should be sufficient to present the need the opportunity and then as God Works in a person's heart to voluntarily give.

All right, so that that's an aside That's my little soapbox for today What I really wanted to focus on was the

Lord's requirement for these animal sacrifices that they be without blemish

They'd be without blemished and that Requirement of an unblemished sacrifice speaks of a few things that I just wanted to I just want to mention one of those is that in an unblemished sacrifice

An unblemished animal would render that to be truly Truly a sacrifice the giving of one's best

You know it and I think this guards against the attitude that you know, okay,

I have this I have this animal It's it's not it's not gonna be it's not healthy. It's not gonna grow to be, you know productive in any way so I just give that one to the

Lord and and not deal with it not have to mess with it This this this doesn't give any opportunity for that kind of a mentality

No, if you want to give a free will offering to the Lord Get an unblemished lamb an unblemished offering animal and offer that as a sacrifice.

And by the way, I think that I Understand that to be the problem with Cain's sacrifice.

You remember in Cain and Abel Cain's sacrifice was his offering was from the garden

Abel was Cared for the livestock and he brought an offering from the from the animals

Cain cared for the garden mostly and he brought a sacrifice from From the garden, but the indication is that the kind of stuff that Cain brought from the garden was

You know like overripe stuff the the stuff that you just really wouldn't want to put in your salad if you will and He said well,

I'll just give that as an offering to the Lord Not accepted and the Lord made that very clear.

So For for a sacrifice to be truly a sacrifice. I need to give him my best and and that Brings up a second point here.

And that is the fact that the Lord is worthy of my best He's worthy of my best if I If I'm you know giving him second rate second best

What does that tell me about my attitude toward him? And the third idea I wanted to point point out is that this

Unblemished sack animal would as a sacrifice point forward to Christ He the spotless the sinless lamb

That was sacrificed to atone for our sins he he had to be a sinless sacrifice a sacrifice without blemish only a

Spotless lamb would do for that sacrifice So just a few ideas that even as we read those requirements and we can get bogged down and oh boy

They really had a lot of rules to follow. Yeah, but let's let's pay attention and see what do those tell us?

What those guidelines teach us? The other thing I want to point out is that in particularly in chapter 23

The Lord set aside several different feasts for the people of Israel to celebrate every year

So let me just go through the list of them every week. There was the Sabbath That was one day out of seven.

They were not to do any work or anything like that. Then there was Passover And right after Passover was the feast of unleavened bread it was a week -long

Festival there was the feast of first fruits There was the festival of weeks was seven weeks after the the feast of first fruits

There was the feast of trumpets Then there was the Day of Atonement in the seventh month on the tenth day and then a week later after the

Day of Atonement Was the feast of tabernacles a feast of booths where people lived in these tents and the

Lord set these things aside No, I find interesting in all this. Is it almost all of these? special days

Were days that were set aside Where there was to be no ordinary work done in them

Some of them were week -long things so it's like the Lord built into the

Routine the annual routine and weekly routine of his people opportunities for rest refreshment break from the the rigors of Life and the rigors of work giving opportunities to celebrate and get refreshment so this past Sunday my morning message focused on that very idea of The Lord calling us setting us calling us aside to rest a while and how he established that Even in these

Old Testament laws, so I may maybe you didn't get to hear that message I encourage you to go back you can review it on the church website and find the video but just to Just to be encouraged that the

Lord wants you to get rest So, all right Heavenly Father.

I thank you for your word and for this this challenged about our own sacrifices that we

We recognize that you're worthy of our best and then we're so thankful that you gave

The best sacrifice in our behalf the unblemished Spotless sinless lamb the

Lord Jesus Christ Thank you for your great gifts the gifts of the spotless lamb and even the gift of rest.

May we Appreciate and enjoy and praise you for these gifts and this we ask in Jesus name and for his sake

All right. We'll have a good rest of your Wednesday. And if you can join us for the midweek service tonight 7 o 'clock 645 for the kids 7 o 'clock for Bible study and prayer time