Leviticus 1:3 If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish: he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the LORD.
When I was a kid, I remember going with a friend to a gathering with a lot of his family. He was a Hispanic friend, and I was about the only person there who did not know Spanish. So much of what happened at that party was a mystery to me. I didn’t quite understand it. I remember a later time as a kid with my dad and mom in San Francisco, CA. We were in Chinatown at lunchtime, and we went to a restaurant where we were the only ones who did not know how to use the chopsticks at our place settings. There was no silverware. There was also no menu, and we did not know how to order our food. I felt like I didn’t quite know what was going on.
Likewise, when we begin reading the book of Leviticus, we find ourselves immersed in a culture that is foreign to us. It is almost like we are watching something that we do not understand. We can hear the sound of metal on metal, we see the blood of sacrifice, we smell the scent of incense, and we feel the heat from the fire on the altar, yet it is a mystery to us. It does not quite belong to us.
The last scene in Exodus is the tabernacle, and in Leviticus God speaks from that tabernacle and gives instruction for the worship of Jehovah. Leviticus is a book pertaining to the Levites. What we see here, though it may seem foreign and distant to us, is important and very relevant to the sacrifice that God would provide through His Son.
One truth that emerges as we begin to read this book is that the one you worship determines the way you worship. The one you serve determines the way you serve. I need not understand everything I read in the book of Leviticus in order to benefit from it. These sacrifices were for God and not for man. This is the premise of the entire book.
The Bible says that this sacrifice is “before the LORD.” The phrases, “before the Lord,” “unto the LORD,” and so on, are repeated numerous times in the first chapters of Leviticus. What is happening here is something we may not totally understand, but it is intended to please God and not me.
The one you worship determines the way you worship. The one you serve determines the way you serve. Notice this particular sacrifice was to be voluntary. Now, many were obligatory, but this was voluntary. It could be made of sheep or a turtledove or young pigeon.
Which would be more expensive, a lamb or a pigeon? A lamb is relatively more valuable than a bird, yet the value of the voluntary gifts to God was not about how much, but how. I can’t give what the next man can give, but I can give what I can give. When I give what I am able to give, this is just as valuable to God as the plenty a wealthy person might give. God doesn’t want what belongs to you; He wants you.
We see this in the book of Leviticus. The one I serve determines the way I serve, so I should serve God willingly with a generous heart. Whether my gift is great or small, it needs to be my best. The Bible says that the sacrifice was to be without blemish.
Many years later, one of God’s prophets would essentially say to the Jewish people, “You are giving God the floppy-eared runt of the flock. You wouldn’t even do that with your own provincial governor. If you tried to give that kind of trash to the provincial governor, he wouldn’t accept that. Why do you think God would be pleased with it?”
Our service and sacrifice is ultimately to God and not to man. He is the One to be pleased. He is the One that deserves our best. This is the ethic to keep in mind as we serve the Lord God!