Nathan Neighbors
Follower of Christ, Husband, Father, & Youth Pastor
I said that yesterday’s scripture reading reminded me of the great price that had to be paid for our sin. Today’s reading goes into great details about various sins and forms of uncleanliness. There are a lot of lists in these passages about all the ways and reasons that someone must be cleansed. The passage that stands out the most to me in this section is Leviticus 26:12-16:
12 I will walk among you and be your God, and you will be my people. 13 I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of Egypt so that you would no longer be slaves to the Egyptians; I broke the bars of your yoke and enabled you to walk with heads held high. 14 ” ‘But if you will not listen to me and carry out all these commands, 15 and if you reject my decrees and abhor my laws and fail to carry out all my commands and so violate my covenant, 16 then I will do this to you: I will bring upon you sudden terror, wasting diseases and fever that will destroy your sight and drain away your life…
I love the early part of this passage about the Lord freeing the Israelite’s from bondage, but I’m a little frightened and humbled by verse 15 & 16. Wow…terror, disease, loss of sight…and life being drained away…that’s intense.
The book of Leviticus is never high of most people’s lists of favorite Bible passages, but it’s hard to skip over it if you’re reading through the whole Bible. These passages give great insight into the details of how offerings were made to the Lord and the role of the priests. There were so many types of offerings: burnt offerings, grain offerings, fellowship offerings, sin offerings, and even guilt offerings. A couple of things stand out to me about these offerings. In every case, the offering is always the best of it’s kind. For example, the finest flour or animals without defect. God doesn’t want us to bring Him our leftovers. He’s God almighty and deserves far more than that. I also noticed the word “slaughter” used often in these passages. The descriptiveness of that word is a reminder to me that there’s a great price to pay for our sin. When we sin against the Lord something has to be given up – atonement for that sin must be made.
Today was the first day of VBS, so I guess you can say it’s officially summer. I was very proud of our 32 students who volunteered. It was a hectic and crazy first morning, but all of our volunteers pulled together to make it happen. In the end…kids had fun and Jesus was glorified.
We also began our annual “passing of the cross” among the teenagers. This is the fifth summer of passing the Tuareg Cross. It’s from West Africa (a gift from my sister when I was a teenager). Students pass the cross throughout the summer among the teenagers and to adult chaperones. It’s become sort of tradition at Morningside…a way of building community and a way of letting the person they pass it to know they saw Christ in their life. I began the cross passing this summer by giving it to one of our seventh grade girls – Meredith Pheffer. Meredith is a wonderful young girl with a heart for the Lord and she plays guitar in our youth worship band.
Nathan Neighbors 