Have you ever struggled reading through the Old Testament? I will grant you that there are some interesting passages in the Old Testament, some things that make you want to scratch your head. However, what is the most important aspect to remember is this; all of Scripture is about God and His plan of redeeming lost sinners to Himself. This is what our text today in Blogging Through The Bible In 2020 reminds us of. Leviticus 23:1-2 says, “And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: the feasts of the Lord, which you shall proclaim to be holy convocations, these are My feasts.”
If you read all of Leviticus 23, you will see that God has appointed seven specific times of worship for the nation of Israel. These are to be times of special remembrances that are tied directly to events that God has done for the nation of Israel. God indicates the specialness of these feasts by referring to them as holy convocations. He is reminding Israel and us today, that when we come to worship the Lord, it is to be a holy encounter with the living God. We are not to come haphazardly. We come with the intent of worshipping the risen Savior, hearing from Him, and then taking what He has given us through His Word and obeying it. We are to take inventory of our lives before we enter His presence. In order for our worship to be received by God, we must come in humble dependence upon Him having confessed and turned from any and all known sin. To come into His presence with unconfessed, unreported of sin in our life is to invite the judgment of God into our lives. We must never forget the command in Leviticus 11:44 and repeated in 1 Peter 1:16, “Be holy, for I am holy.” We are to pursue holiness in our lives.
These feasts were never about what Israel had done for God. They were all about what God had done for Israel. Click To TweetThe last part of this verse is an important reminder when God says, “these are My feasts.” God is saying, these seven feasts of this chapter are to point you ultimately to Jesus. These feasts were never about what Israel had done for God. They were all about what God had done for Israel. Worship today is to be a celebration and a reminder of God’s faithfulness to us in saving us, providing for us, being with us, and one day welcoming us into His eternal presence.
Worship should be all about God, and my gratefulness for what He has done and is doing for me. Click To TweetWhen we gather to worship the Lord it should be a special time. A time in which we lay our burdens down at the altar, and worship the living God who died in our place. Worship should be all about God, and my gratefulness for what He has done and is doing for me.
By His grace and for His glory,
Pastor Justin