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The primary source of wealth in Moshe’s day were one’s animals, so offering an animal to the Lord was a financial inconvenience, a sacrifice. Romans 12 tells us what sacrifice we are called to make now that there’s no Temple. We give our lives to God. That is more expensive and more precious than a turtledove, goat or a bull.
First, the author of Leviticus speaks about the guilt offering and then later about the peace offering. When you give something to God, it must be “unblemished.” What does that mean? It means that it must be the best animal you own based on your station in life. Who is given much requires much.
You don’t think you have anything worth giving to God? Ask God what He wants of you. He will tell you.
God asks us to give Him something He has already given us. We have our “unleavened” self — “sincerity and truth” (1Cor. 5:7–8) — only because God gave it to us. It is because Yeshua, our Passover, has been sacrificed for us. We become God’s offering.
The first offering discussed in Leviticus 7 is the guilt offering. This is an offering for transgression, which is called אָשָׁם asham in Hebrew (Strong’s lexicon No. H817). This is not just making a mistake in ignorance. This is when one knowingly disobey’s God’s law — does something offensive.
This word is also used for guilty in Prov. 30:10:
“Do not slander a slave to his master, or he will curse you and you will be found guilty.”
The other offering discussed in Lev. 7 is a peace offering. After the guilt offering, you have fulfilled the letter of the law, and He has forgiven you, but you are still not “friends” with God until you present your peace offering, which is called the שֶׁלֶם shelem (Strong’s H8002). This offering is more important than the other offerings but we have do the other offerings to prepare for this one.
One part of this peace offering is an offering of unleavened bread. God didn’t just set up all these offerings just for the sake of rote obedience. He wants to be connected with us, He wants to be part of us and we want to be part of Him. He is not going out of his way to hold something against us.
This is a picture of us giving something we find precious to God. Paul tells us to give our lives as a living sacrifice to God. Romans 12 tells us what God wants of us.
If all you think about is the flesh, you aren’t thinking about faith, hope and charity. You need to address those issues to God and get it over with. Yeshua said it’s better for us to fall upon the rock than for the rock to fall upon you.
God can redeem anyone He wants. When He redeems you, you give Him a peace offering and your life. God is going to complete His work, the work He began with Adam. That’s the beauty of trusting in God. We can either live in continuing frustration over our flesh or receive comfort from His spirit, who can strengthen and heal us in the spirit.
The priest’s job was take your gift and give it to God. The priest did not judge the offering or the person offering. He simply took it and gave it to God. Sometime the priest received a portion of it.
We think of sacrifice in a negative sense because we think of it as death, as a burden but we are approaching God with our life.
Speaker: Richard Agee: Reader: Jeff. Summary: Tammy.