April 2010
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Archive for April 2010

4-25-2010

30. April 2010 by admin.

worship 4-25-10 from Brad Vander Waal on Vimeo.

message 4-25-10 from Brad Vander Waal on Vimeo.

Fellowshipping with the LORD

30. April 2010 by admin.

Have you ever really thought about our Western eating customs? People all over the world share meals differently. In Malawi, whenever you go to someone’s home, they want to cook you a meal as part of their hospitality. It is more than hospitality though. It is generosity!!! The people may have very little to share with another person (of course they do not tell you this, and they just go hungry later), but they share what they have. It is their custom, and it is rude to refuse their hospitality. In America when someone comes to visit, we usually offer them something to drink, and perhaps a snack, but usually it is not a big sacrifice to do this, and if there isn’t enough food for dinner, then we would just skip it. Neither is right or wrong, they are just different.

In Leviticus 3, we are now speaking of the wellbeing or fellowship offering. This is considered a “lesser offering”. This offering still has the rules about sacrifice, but it can be any animal from the herd or flock, so long as it is without blemish. Certain parts of the animal are the offering, and all of the fat belongs to the LORD. This is important.

Once again, in Malawi, when I went to buy meat, the butcher always tried to give us the best parts of the cow because we were visitors to his country. While we tend to think of the lean cuts as being the best cuts, they look at the best cuts as the ones with lots of fat. This is because it improves the taste and makes the meat moist when cooking. Many people like the fat of the meat for it’s sweet taste (even though I am not one of them.)

God requires the fat. Why? Perhaps it is because it is the extra of the animal and shows the animal has had enough to eat, or perhaps it is because it is the most savory. Either way, the people sacrifice this to the LORD as an offering. However, unlike the burnt offering and the grain offering, the people that sacrificed the animal get to keep the extra parts that are not required by the LORD. That is why this is a fellowship offering. In fellowship we share with one another.

Are you fellowshipping with the LORD today? Are you giving something to the LORD above the minimum? How is God sharing it back with you?

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Leaven in our grain offering

27. April 2010 by admin.

As I read chapter 2 of Leviticus, I couldn’t help but think of a time in Malawi. I was living with a Malawian family and for dinner I was going to have a real treat of mashed potatoes. I was really hungry that night, and you don’t just throw things out that don’t turn out as yummy as you’d like. Fianess had made the potatoes and I was going to put some margarine (also a huge luxury) on the potatoes. Being the clutz that I am, when I opened the container, I spilled the contents onto my potatoes. Unfortunately, Fianess had used the container to store the yeast we used for making bread. So I had yeasty potatoes. I was hungry and didn’t want to be wasteful, so I ate the potatoes. Not only did the potatoes taste funny (and bad), but having that much active yeast go into your stomach has reprecussions. I became very bloated and felt sick to my stomach.

Chapter 2 is all about the grain offerings. Once again there are requirements for how to offer up the grain offerings. What caught my attention though was that none of the grain offerings were to have yeast in them. One could offer flour, grain, breads, cakes, etc… but they all had to be unleavened and the choicest parts.

Now, I didn’t really understand how you throw flour on the altar to make smoke, and not quench a fire, but I did see the relevance of the unleavened grain. Throughout the Bible leaven (yeast) was associated with sin. In 1 Corinthians 5:6-8, Paul speaks to the Corinthians about sin and uses the metaphor of leavening. He says, “Your boasting is not a good thing. Do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough? Clean out the old yeast so taht you may be a new batch, as you really are unleavened. Four our paschal lamb, Christ, has been sacrificed. Therefore, let us celebreate the festival, not with the old yeast, the yeast of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.” He is basically saying that just a little piece of yeast, just a little bit of sin, corrupts/destroys the whole bread, or our lives. Casting Crowns, a popular Christian music group has a song called “Slow Fade”. This song speaks about how when we let sin slide it is a slow fade in a downward circle in our lives. One sin leads to another, and soon we are where we never thought we would be.

So, how do we stop this slow fade, and rid ourselves of the “sin that so easily entangles us”? How do we make our lives, the living sacrifices (Romans 12:1-2) an aroma pleasing the to the Lord? Can we be a pleasing aroma in our offerings with sin in our lives?

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Life in Leviticus by Nancy Keyes

27. April 2010 by admin.

Chapter 1- Recipe for Burnt Offerings

Worship is sometimes like cooking. When we cook, oftentimes we have a recipe, or list and directions of order to get the desired product. We need to follow the directions or it may not turn out right. Cooking is sometimes tedious and messy, but the final product is the reward

God’s Recipe for Burnt offerings:

Ingredients:

Choose one:

herd (bull)- male without blemish

flock (sheep or goat)- male without blemish

bird (pigeon or turtledove)

Directions:

herd- take to entrance of tent of meeting (for acceptance from the LORD); lay hand on head (be accepted on your behalf); slaughter before the LORD;

PRIESTS- will offer blood, dashing on all sides of altar

flay and cut into pieces

Priests- arrange parts on altar; wash entrails and legs in water; burn for smoke

Yield= pleasing odor to the LORD

FLOCK-

Take to the Northern side of the altar before the LORD;

Priests- dah blood against all sides of altar, cup into parts; arrange parts on altar; wash entrails and legs in water; offer whole and turn into smoke

YIELD- pleasing odor to LORD

BIRDS-

PRIESTS DO ALL! Bring to altar and wring off head; turn into smoke; blood drained out against side of altar; remove food tube with contents and throw onto ash heap (east side); tear it open by wings without severing it; turn into smoke

YIELD: Pleasing odor to the LORD

So what recipe do we live by? We no longer have to do these sacrifices because Jesus was our true sacrifice. he was a make without blemish, given as a free offering. He was offered and accepted at the door for those who acknowledge they are sinners and Christ died for them. He was/is the atonement. Paul writes in Romans 12:1-2, “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship. Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mids, so taht you may discern what is the will of God- what is good and acceptable and perfect” (NRSV). Emerson Pent said, ” Here’s the problem with the living sacrifice; it keeps crawling off the altar.” While burnt offerings remain still, but we “surrender” everything to God, and after a while we “crawl off the altar.” So, what does being a living sacrifice mean to you, and how will you refrain from “crawling off the altar”?

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