Today’s Reading Leviticus 5-7
Focal Scripture: Leviticus 7:35 “This is the portion from the food offering to the Lord for Aaron and his sons since the day they were presented to serve the Lord as priests.”
The priests have a very big job. All day they are killing animals, sprinkling blood, burning the leftovers, making sure the fire never goes out, and worshiping God. It is hard to imagine how many animals died daily. The tasks they were assigned had to get overwhelming at times. It had to be emotionally taxing to be around death and blood all the time.
This means because of the workload they had on a daily basis they probably did not take very good care of themselves. The job did not leave much time for other activities. Thankfully the Lord took care of the priests. We see in Leviticus that the priests got a portion of the bread that was left over and even some of the meat from one of the offerings. The Lord provided for the priests even when it looked like they would have to take care of themselves.
The point so far in Leviticus is to give instructions on the why and how to present offerings to the Lord. We see that sin is taken pretty serious in God’s eyes. We also see that taking care of people both physically and spiritually was important to God.
An important lesson to learn from this is that even though we must take our calling to serve the Lord seriously we must also take care of ourselves. The priests had to take time to eat for their bodies. They also had to take care of sin in their own lives. The lesson to learn is that nobody can go down a path where their body and soul are not being looked after.
I know of many people in ministry who think it is a badge of honor to work and not rest. That shows immaturity and a very unhealthy way of taking care of yourself. It will not support a sustainable ministry for life. The lesson we learn from today’s scripture is that when the Lord provides opportunities for the ones serving to rest and recharge they must be taken advantage of by the priests.
Serving can dictate your schedule. The church can suck the life out of you if you allow it by controlling every aspect of your life. However, that is not biblical. It is not fair to your family. It is not responsible to your own health. The Lord provides opportunities for rest and they must be taken advantage of when presented.
Rest is biblical. Ministering to your family is biblical. Taking care of yourself is biblical. If you struggle with this I pray that you will dig deep and rest in Christ.
Tomorrow I plan on reading Leviticus 8-10
