Punishment vs. Blessing
I love Leviticus 26
for a whole different set of reasons than I love the Sabbath/Jubilee
regulations of Leviticus 25. I invite
you to notice something right off, and you don’t even need to read
anything. No doubt Leviticus 26 is
broken up into two sections in your Bible, and they are probably titled
something like “Blessings for Obedience” (1-13) and “Punishments for
Disobedience” (14-46).
Now, look at that and
tell me what you notice. The punishments
section is FAR longer. It’s not even
comparable.
Let’s learn the
lesson here. When we truly obey God, our
life is such that we don’t need to be convinced to continue to obey God. God simply can promise that if we obey Him we
will know happiness, fulfillment, and life in His care. He doesn’t need to go too much deeper than
that because life with God is good.
On the other hand, we
do need warnings for life without God. Life
without God is frustrating and lonely.
Life without God causes us to focus on ourselves and our problems. We need someone to take the time and force us
to realize that our problems are deeper than “the world is against us and hates
us.” We need to realize that our poor
attitude towards life is because of the fact that we have turned our backs
against God.
It is amazing to note
this contrast. When we are walking with
God, we don’t need convincing because we are changed and see through God’s
eyes. When we are not with God we need
to be convinced because our blind eyes and stone hearts cannot focus and feel
as they should. Without even reading a
word in Leviticus we can observe this lesson.
Now go back and read
through this passage with that in mind.
When you get to the last bit about the passage where it talks about
returning to the Lord, come back and finish reading this blog.
Value of Repentance
Notice that God may
allow for consequences of sin, but God is never too far away to help us return
to Him. There’s two parts to that
sentence. First, notice I said
consequence for sin, not punishment for sin.
We receive the consequences of our sin.
We live in the consequences of our rebellion against God. When we recognize our sinfulness and turn to
God, it is not God who needs to move but we who need to move out of our sin and
go back to God!
Although praise be to
God that while He does not need to move, He is willing to move to help us
return! That leads us to the second part
of the first sentence of the last paragraph.
When we do turn, God will remember His promises and allow us entrance
back into the life that is in Him. We
will still have to deal with consequences, of course. Turning to God does not erase the
consequences of our past guilt, but God does erase the guilt of our past
actions. Honestly, that’s already well
more than fair!
Praise be to
God. In His righteousness and His
justice He could smite us. But He is
patient, merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.
God’s Care for Creation
One other thing leapt
out at me as I read through the punishments section. God has a passionate care for His creation –
not just humanity. When we as human
beings become self-centered, one of the biggest things to suffer is
creation. We as human beings love to
take what we need without thinking about the long-term effects – especially upon
creation.
But notice that when
things get so bad that we leave God completely, God has a plan for
creation. When we no longer demonstrate
care for creation, God will send us into exile and the land will have its rest. When in our sin we abuse creation, God will
take care of creation!
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