Consecrate Yourself to God

Exodus 29:42-46 - It shall be a continual burnt offering throughout your generations at the door of the tent of meeting before the LORD, where I will meet with you, to speak there to you.  There I will meet with the people of Israel, and it shall be sanctified by my glory;  I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar; Aaron also and his sons I will consecrate, to serve me as priests.  And I will dwell among the people of Israel, and will be their God.  And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them forth out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them; I am the LORD their God.

Aaron and his sons had to clean themselves before the Lord and dress in their new clothes….the ones that set them apart as ‘holy’ before the Lord…the ones that held the names of all the people so they could represent all of Israel when they went before God. Then they had to lay their hands on the sacrifices that would atone for their sins….to sanctify themselves…to consecrate themselves to his service.  The instructions were very detailed…making the worship ritual of Yahweh very different from the pagan gods they would encounter as they traveled toward the promised land of Canaan.

I will be very honest with you this morning…I had a hard time reading about all that killing and blood. These blood sacrifices seemed so cruel to me…but then so was the killing of Jesus on the cross. Just as they offered the perfect lamb morning and evening to atone for their sins…Jesus offered his perfect body as a sacrifice for all….to anyone that will accept him and believe in his great love for them.  I am reminded of how very thankful I am that Jesus did away with the need for me to kill and sacrifice an animal…and will probably never understand the scope of what he did to save me and bring about a way for me to worship him any time I want.

God is serious about his people…he wants us all to be consecrated…sanctified to worship him.  He wants us to be serious about our worship of him…to clean ourselves up…to dress ourselves in our finest…and come to him and confess our sins each morning and evening.  He wants us to sacrifice our time …and energy…the resources he has blessed us with…and offer them back to him…to use to build his kingdom.

Father…I fall so short each day of who you planned me to be.  I thank you that I can wake each morning and ask your precious forgiveness…and  begin a new day of trying to walk in your perfect will for me.  I thank you that I can visit with you each evening and let you reveal the wisdom and help you hid in the bible for me to find.  Forgive me for my many sins…and help me this day to depend more on you to help me become who you need me to be. Amen.