Seeking the Heart of God

We've all been there: a Youth Retreat, a Revival, or a Sunday night church service. It's hot and a little stuffy in the room and the preacher up front asks that question, you know it, you've heard it before "How many of you have read through your whole Bible?" Hands slowly go up (we have to be humble after all). There are a few who have done this but then the preacher gets a little gleam in his eye, and asks another question, the one that usually confuses me: "Including Leviticus…?" Well, with that, hands tend to fall like Autumn leaves, but then, the preacher was expecting that, and usually goes on to say how Leviticus is such a boring book. Well, I won't claim that I have ever sat down and gone through a plan to read through the whole Bible, but I can say that it does confuse me that so many people find Leviticus to boring. Maybe I'm weird, but I find it to be fascinating. Maybe we tend to shy away from Leviticus because it is a book all about rules, and since we are living under the New Covenant we figure rules were just for people like David and Joshua. Or maybe, we just don't care about grain offerings and the reasons why the camel is unclean. Fair enough, but perhaps before we discard Leviticus, we might want to think about why God created the Law in the first place. Now, I'm not claiming to know the thoughts of God, but I'm pretty sure that he didn't make rules just to fowl the Israelites up, for example, I'm pretty sure he didn't find out what all their favorite foods were and then decide that just to make things difficult, he would outlaw them just to make it difficult to follow him. Rather, he made the laws because they illustrate his very nature. God didn't make lying a sin because he knew that humans had a propensity for lying, rather, God is truth, so lying is anti-God, therefore it is sin. So how does this relate to Leviticus? Well, amidst the laws concerning sacrifices for various things, and rules about which animals are clean and which are unclean, there are several times when God gives the Israelites these little nuggets of gold. In Leviticus 19:9-10 for example, God reminds the Israelites that they are not simply supposed to be amassing wealth for themselves, but they are supposed to be taking care of the needy and the stranger, the LORD tells Moses "Now when you reap the harvest of your land, you shall not reap to the very corners of your field, nor shall you gather the gleanings of your harvest. Nor shall you glean your vineyard, nor shall you gather the fallen fruit of you vineyard; you shall give leave them for the needy and the stranger. I am the LORD your God" (NASB). This awakes Israel's social consciousness, and shows us God's heart for community. Later, in 25:1-55, God gives the command for the year of Jubilee. This again confirms God's heart for community, but also illustrates God's graciousness, and that everything on this earth is owned by God and we have no claim on it. So I encourage you to read Leviticus. It is not simply a book of rules; it is an illustration of God and an outline which describes what to do to please him. Are you ready to look to the laws of God for his self-portrait?