February 7th, 21

The Shadow of a Good Thing

Leviticus 4-6 and Acts 14. We are reading through the NLT.

Bulls, goats, and birds…how does any of this stuff have anything to do with Jesus? These things can seem so strange and far removed from our own lives. Not many of us have seen an animal offered on an altar.  What does it all mean? Hebrews 10:1-2 says this:

The old system under the law of Moses was only a shadow, a dim preview of the good things to come, not the good things themselves. The sacrifices under that system were repeated again and again, year after year, but they were never able to provide perfect cleansing for those who came to worship. If they could have provided perfect cleansing, the sacrifices would have stopped, for the worshipers would have been purified once for all time, and their feelings of guilt would have disappeared.

The ‘good thing’ to come is your perfect cleansing, for all time, and your feelings of guilt disappearing.  That’s the ‘good thing’ that we are only seeing a shadow of in these strange things we read about in Leviticus.  This shadow play and detailed system of sacrifices didn’t change the way they felt on the inside.  That’s why they were back year after year.  

So it is today.  The shadow play that we make up, to get rid of our own bad feelings of guilt, doesn’t work either.  BUT we’ve been made right with God,, not through a ram, a bull or a bird.  Jesus is THE perfect Lamb. God wants us to know that it’s a perfect cleansing, once for all time.  You can’t sacrifice any more than that.  God wants you and me to know that.  And he also want us to know that in that sacrifice of love, he has also given us his LIFE, now.

There is perfect cleansing that frees you from feelings of guilt, and it is for all people.  His life is always better than the blood of rams, and bulls and goats.  He not only atoned for your sin but He also offers you, graciously, his Life now.  

Live today in the light of that perfect cleansing gift.

You are loved!