Year 4, Day 95: Leviticus 6

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Up, In

• Up: Up is the word we use for what we worship.  If we are following God’s will, God will occupy the Up position.  Our life, our identity, our mission, our family on mission is all derived from Up.  This is why God needs to be in our Up position.
• In: This is the word we use to express our relationships with our spiritual family.  These are often the people who hold us spiritually accountable.  They are the ones to whom we typically go for discussion and discernment.  These are the ones with whom we learn to share leadership.  They are the ones with whom we become family on mission.

Here is a neat opening to a chapter that demonstrates the flow from Up to In.  Yesterday we spent a good amount of time talking about how recognizing our sinfulness is actually a great position to consider our relationship with God.  Here in chapter 6 we continue that line of thinking.  Look at Leviticus 6:2 specifically.  It talks about those who commit a sin or breach of faith against the Lord.  Sin is always against God first and foremost.

However, our sin usually leads us into conflict with other people.  When we act unfaithfully towards our promises we violate our trust with God.  Yet, our unfaithfulness leads us into broken relationships and broken trust with those people around us as well.  Our breach of faith against God leads us into breaches of faith against one another.

The same is also true about the opposite path.  When we are faithful to God, we will be faithful to one another.  When I honor God, I will also honor my neighbor.  When my relationship is right with God, my relationship with the spiritual people around me will also be right.  When my Up is strong, I will naturally be led into a proper In.

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Year 4, Day 94: Leviticus 5

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Up

• Up: Up is the word we use for what we worship.  If we are following God’s will, God will occupy the Up position.  Our life, our identity, our mission, our family on mission is all derived from Up.  This is why God needs to be in our Up position.

In this chapter we hear about atoning for sins.  We hear about unintentional sins of the leadership as well as sin among the people.  We hear about our propensity towards human failings.  None of us can escape it.

This might not seem to be an ideal passage about which to talk about Up.  But in one sense it is the ideal time to talk about Up.  After all, where would we be without God?  Without our life beginning with God, what would we be?  It is God who opens His arms to us in spite of our sinfulness.  It is God who embraces us when we do not deserve it.

As we hear about in the opening chapters of Leviticus, in order to get to a place of worship we must begin in recognizing our sinfulness.  This is why so many of our church services begin in confession!  When we start with our sinfulness we grow an appreciation for the God who forgives us and who desires to be in a relationship with us.  What better reason can there be to then draw closer to God!

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Year 4, Day 93: Leviticus 4

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Identity

• Identity: Our true identity comes from the Father.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.

As we look at the Sin Offering, we can’t help but notice the categories contained within.  The book begins with what should happen when a priest unintentionally sins.  Then we hear about what happens when a leader unintentionally sins.  Finally we hear about what happens when an ordinary member of the community sins unintentionally.

One of the neat dynamics of this chapter is that we can look at the punishment with respect to the role of a person within the community.  The spiritual leader should know better.  The spiritual leader is looked upon as an example.  Thus, when the spiritual leader sins unintentionally it is a rather big deal involving a rather large sacrifice.  The same is true of a general community leader, but to a somewhat lesser extent.  It is also true of an ordinary member of the community, but to a much diminished extent.

What is your identity from God?  What role has God asked you to play within your spiritual community?  Are you living up to your identity?  Are you taking into consideration the implications of your wrongdoing with respect to the effects upon the whole community?  When you are obedient to the identity that comes from the Father, how is the community made better?  When you are disobedient to your identity that comes from the Father, how do you make atonement to God so that the community underneath you is not affected?

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Year 4, Day 92: Leviticus 3

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Father

• Father: This is the pinnacle of the Covenant Triangle.  God is the Father.  He is the creator.  He is love.  Our relationship with the Father is rooted in His love for us.  We get our identity through Him.

Since we’ve begun Leviticus, we’ve spoken about forgiveness and relationships with God.  In this chapter we come at this same topic but from a different angle.  In the prior chapters it was all about doing what was prescribed in order to make amends within our relationship with God.  Today we hear about the peace offering.  This is not an offering that had to be done at any given time.  Rather, it was simply an offering that could be made at any time as a declaration of joy with respect to being at peace with God.

As I read through this chapter, it felt like a chapter from the Father rather than some overarching ruler of the universe.  This chapter reads like it comes from a Father who desires relationship rather than a supreme ruler who desires blind and meaningless action.  This chapter is about recognizing and celebrating our relationship with the Father!

It is God who created us.  It is God who called us into relationship.  It is God who forgives us.  It is God who shapes us, molds us, and gives us identity.  What a blessing it is to be able to be at peace with our creator!

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Year 4, Day 91: Leviticus 2

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Covenant Triangle

• Covenant Triangle: The covenant triangle is about relationship. The Father gives identity while our identity shows us those things in which God has called us into obedience.  The covenant triangle is about relationship.

In a moment of surprise, we can see that the grain offering is actually about relationship.  This isn’t really the surprise.  It makes sense that offerings to God would be about relationship.

What is a surprise is the manner in which the focus on relationship comes through the text.  The relationship actually comes through the most clearly in the idea that the sacrifices are salted.  In several places in scripture we can see that covenants between humanity and God are called covenants of salt.  Salt is a reminder of our relationship with God.

What is the relationship with God all about?  Relationship with God is about understanding His ways and His desire for our life.  It is about understanding what God would have us do and then living it out.  It is about humbling our ways for His ways.  It is about submission and listening and being open to God.  That is what the salt is all about in the sacrifices to God as prescribed in Leviticus.

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Year 4, Day 90: Leviticus 1

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Forgiveness

• Forgiveness: Obviously, forgiveness is when our sins are absolved by God.  We do not deserve this forgiveness, but God grants it to us anyway.  We cannot earn forgiveness, but God gives it to us anyway.  As we are forgiven by God, He also asks us to forgive others.  In fact, Jesus Himself teaches us to pray for our forgiveness in the Lord’s Prayer when He says, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.

As we begin Leviticus, we get a heavy topic right off the bat: atonement.  Atonement is the process of dealing with our sinfulness.  In fact, the word atonement means “to cover.”

What is neat about this chapter is that God desires us to know the process of forgiveness.  God didn’t have to forgive any of us.  He didn’t have to provide a means to atone for sin.  But He desires it.  He wants to be in relationship with us.  Therefore, He teaches us to know atonement.  He teaches us to know forgiveness.  He teaches us to value His forgiveness.

Of course, this is even truer in the New Testament.  God didn’t have to send His Son, but He did.  He didn’t have to take our sins upon Himself, but He did.  God pours out His forgiveness upon us and simply asks that we reflect His forgiveness onto the people around us.

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Year 4, Day 89: Exodus 40

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Father

• Father: This is the pinnacle of the Covenant Triangle.  God is the Father.  He is the creator.  He is love.  Our relationship with the Father is rooted in His love for us.  We get our identity through Him.  When the Father is in our life, obedience becomes clear.

It’s neat to have a good look at Father as we end the book of Exodus.  Moses was certainly obedient as he erects the tabernacle at the request of the Lord.  That obedience comes because Moses got his identity from the Father.

Furthermore, look closely at how this book ends.  When the tabernacle is erected, the glory of the Lord fills the tabernacle.  Here again we see an aspect of the Father.  The Father dwells with His people.

Also notice the response of the people.  When the glory of the Lord stayed in the tabernacle, the people stayed in camp.  When the glory of the Lord left the tabernacle, the people broke camp and moved where God led them.  Here we see a pattern take shape.  The Father gives us identity.  We are then able to act obediently to that very identity.  It starts with God and ends in our obedience.

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Year 4, Day 88: Exodus 39

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Calling, Competency

• Calling asks whether or not God has called the person to the particular work at this point in their life.
• Competency asks whether or not the person has the readiness to be obedient to God’s will.

As we get ready to conclude the book of Exodus, we hear about the completion of the work on the tabernacle.  We hear that the work is done well.  Bezalel has done good work.  It is worthy of praise to God and blessing upon Bezalel.

Here we have a story of competency.  This isn’t a story of character.  Bezalel’s character is not on display, his competency is on display.  Bezalel is ready for the task at hand.  He is prepared to act.  He is capable of accomplishing what the Lord has set before him.

Of course, this is also a story of calling.  Certainly Bezalel is called to do this work.  We’ve spoken about this over the last two days.  What is neat is that in this story we see the culmination of calling and competency here in this chapter.  Here is the fruit of a man who was called by God and equipped by God to accomplish that calling.

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Year 4, Day 87: Exodus 38

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Financial Capital

• Financial Capital: Financial capital is that which the world pursues with all of its heart.  However, from God’s perspective it is the lowest of the five capitals.  As with all capitals, it absolutely has value.  But it can be traded for capitals that have much greater value.

As we look at Bezalel’s work in the tabernacle, we can get a sense of the amount of material that is used in the construction.  Tons of gold, silver, bronze, wood, and fabric are brought forth.  From prior chapters, we actually remember that the materials brought forth are actually greater than what was needed.

If we look at what God is trying to do in the life of the Hebrew people, we can see a neat dynamic at work.  God is teaching the people to trade their financial capital in order to be in relationship with Him.  Financial capital is easy to love, but spiritual capital gleaned through our relationship with the Father is far more significant.

What is neat, though, is how little each family would have honestly had to give in order to bring the tabernacle into existence.  Each family would have needed to give about 1/20 of an ounce of gold and silver.  For a people who had just plundered Egypt, this would have been a pittance.  God asks little of us; yet He desires so greatly to bless us with spiritual capital: relationship with Him.

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Year 4, Day 86: Exodus 37

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Purpose and Play

• Purpose and Play: This is the idea that when we are truly following God there will be a sense of both purpose and play in our lives.  God’s purpose is great.  However, God also desires us to enjoy creation as well.  We need a sense of both purpose and play when following God.

It is easy to read this chapter and get lost in the mechanics of the words.  After all, this chapter seems to be speaking about the profound work that went into the building of the tabernacle and its implements.  It seems to be a chapter that focuses on the work of following God.

However, if we read closely into the words, we see that this chapter is not just about perfection.  As Bezalel goes about producing the elements of worship he adorns them with objects in creation that he sees in creation.  Bezalel speaks not just to the efficiency of the tabernacle elements but also to their beauty.

God understands this dynamic.  We have purpose, of course.  But we can also have play.  We can have fun and enjoy the work of God.  After all, if we are going about the work that God has created us to accomplish then why should we not be able to enjoy it?

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Year 4, Day 85: Exodus 36

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Authority, Power

• Authority: Our calling.  This comes from God as king.  Because He calls us as His representatives, He gives us authority to go and do His will.
• Power: This is the natural outcome when we truly get our authority from the king.  When our authority is from God, we are equipped with His power to accomplish His will.  We act on His behalf in a world that He desperately loves.

As we continue the story of Bezalel, we get an opportunity to see him live out his calling.  God equipped him with His Spirit.  Now we hear Bezalel succeed at the work of creating the tabernacle.

Bezalel is obedient to what God has asked of him.  But he also serves as God’s representative during the construction.  He is a model of living out identity.  He is a model of living out of a relationship with God.  We are told that all who felt the desire came to help Bezalel.  He has the authority to go, succeed, and lead.

Of course, he also has the power.  Having the authority from God, he now boldly goes forth to create.  He has artisans underneath him.  He directs weavers and other craftsmen to live out the vision that God has given to him.  He boldly goes forth and directs the people around him to accomplish the will of God.

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Year 4, Day 84: Exodus 35

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Teacher

• Teacher: One who holds forth the truth and is excited by it. The teacher looks for ways to explain, enlighten, and apply truth.  A teacher's authority doesn't come from how smart they are but from the Word of God and the power of a transformed life.

Although it is a small part of the passage, I think it is worth looking to the end of the passage at Bezalel.  Notice that there are a few things said about this man.  First, he is a skilled craftsman with the ability to grasp vision.  Here is a man capable of putting what God desires into reality.

Notice, however, that this ability has been granted to him by God.  He can do this things because God has empowered him.  God has given him the ability to see and work with what needed to be done.  Bezalel has what he has because it first came from God.

Second, notice that with Bezalel he is not just a craftsman.  He is a teacher.  He doesn’t care only to do; He also cares to teach others to do with him.  For Bezalel, doing is one thing.  It is another thing to teach others to do alongside of himself.

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Year 4, Day 83: Exodus 34

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Obedience

• Obedience: Genuine and satisfying obedience comes out of our identity.  Our true identity comes only from Father.

We’ve spent a number of days on identity lately.  It therefore makes sense to spend a day on obedience.  Moses’ identity comes from God, and here in this chapter we can see the natural result of this identity.  Moses is prepared to be obedient.

Moses is called up the mountain.  Moses is told to bring two stone tablets.  When Moses is told these things he follows the directive.  He also worships.  Here we have the picture of obedience.

What is really neat is the result of this obedience.  Moses talks to God as a person talks with another person.  His face shines brilliantly for all to see.  When our identity comes from God and we are obedient into that identity, we find that our relationship with God is observable to the people around us.

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Year 4, Day 82: Exodus 33

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Identity

• Identity: Our true identity comes from the Father.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.

As we continue the story in Exodus 33, it is still a prime opportunity to speak about identity.  In this chapter we hear God tell Moses that he is to lead this rebellious people.  Moses is to remind the people that they are a stiff-necked people.  Moses is to be the mouthpiece of God.

However, Moses does a great job at knowing His identity.  He is not to become God.  He is not to judge them.  He is not take God’s complaints against the people as His own.  He is not to own God’s wrath upon the people.  Rather, Moses’ job is to convey God’s message so that the people can relate to God better.

Likewise, it is not Moses’ job to take the Hebrew people and their sin upon himself when he relates to God.  He is not capable of doing that.  Rather, He is merely the mediator between the people and God.

What a great reminder for us as Christians.  We cannot take God’s place in judgment over people.  Neither can we take the sins of the people upon ourselves as Christ did.  Rather, we are simply mediators.  We are mediators between God and mankind.  We cannot be God.  We cannot take away their sin.  But we can be a part of God coming to mankind so that relationship might be possible.

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Year 4, Day 81: Exodus 32

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Identity

• Identity: Our true identity comes from the Father.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.

In Exodus 32 we see a huge roadblock to identity: human impatience.  The Hebrew people are waiting at the bottom of the mountain.  They get impatient with what Moses is doing up on the mountain.  So they come to Aaron and ask for a new identity.  They want to become the people of the Golden Calf.

How do we know that this passage revolves around the topic of identity?  When our identity comes from the Father, we end up happily in obedience living a satisfied life in God.  But these Hebrew people do not end up in obedience.  They end up in gross violation.  They end up in sin.  They end up breaking the very first commandment that God had just given to Moses!

Their disobedience ends up in judgment.  It ends in destruction.  It ends in death.  It ends in plague.  When our identity is not from the Lord, we can expect things to turn out for the worst, not for the best.  When our identity is not found in the Lord, life becomes rather tough.

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Year 4, Day 80: Exodus 31

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Identity, Authority

• Identity: Our true identity comes from the Father.  Only when our identity comes from God can we be obedient in ways that satisfy our person to our core.
• Authority: Our calling.  This comes from God as king.  Because He calls us as His representatives, He gives us authority to go and do His will.

In this chapter of Exodus we begin with a beautiful statement of calling.  God tells Moses that He has enabled craftsmen within the community to accomplish what He has set before Moses.  When God plans, God equips so that His plans may come to fruition.

This is really a neat example of both identity and power.  When God equips us, He is giving us identity.  When we are equipped by His hand, we will find both success and satisfaction.  We live out of our identity from the Father and suddenly life feels full.  The secret to identity is not looking to our own desires but instead to the Father and His desire for us.

However, there is more to God’s equipping than identity.  There is also authority.  When God equips us, the King desires for us to go forth and accomplish His will.  He desires for us to be His representative into the world.  He equips us so that we can act out of His authority that He has given to us.  God doesn’t just want us to know who we are; He wants us to have the authority to live it out.

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Year 4, Day 79: Exodus 30

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Up, Out

• Up: Up is the word we use for what we worship.  If we are following God’s will, God will occupy the Up position.  Our life, our identity, our mission, our family on mission is all derived from Up.  This is why God needs to be in our Up position.
• Out: This is the focus of our mission.  These are the people to whom God has called us to go.  These are the people into whom we are focused on attempting to speak God’s truth.

In Exodus 30 we hear much about the word holy.  God is holy.  The incense is holy.  The tabernacle and its implements are holy.  What we are hearing in this passage is that these things are separate from the world.  They are set apart from the world.  They are of God.  This is the Up dimension to our life.  When we are in the presence of God, it is a holy time.  God has called us to understand that we are separate from the world.

However, this doesn’t give us permission to separate ourselves from the world.  Jesus was absolutely holy, but yet He still spent time among the tax collectors and sinners.  He still walked among fallen human beings and even called them into discipleship!  This is our Out dimension.  Yes, we are holy unto God.  He has separated us from the world.  But He has still called us to go into the world and call the world into a holy relationship with Him.  Our holiness does not allow us to stay in Up and never do anything else.  Our holiness is completed when we go through our In and end up in Out drawing others into a holy relationship with God.

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Year 4, Day 78: Exodus 29

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Rhythm

• Rhythm: We are designed to work from rest, not rest from work.  God has created us to be a people of rhythm in which we rest (abide), grow, work (bear fruit), and prune.  The better we understand this natural rhythm in life, the more satisfied we will feel in life and the more we will be able to be in tune with succeeding in what God desires our life to be about.

In the end of Exodus 29, we hear about the daily sacrifices offered before the Lord.  There is a distinct rhythm to this.  At the opening of the day we remember God as we go out to become productive.  At the close of the day we remember God as we return safely home and rest in order to be able to work tomorrow.    Being present with God is often about our rhythms of worship!  Being able to abide and bear fruit and everything in between often starts with our own personal rhythms.

Much of life is lived better when we have rhythms that help us focus and center our life.  As we see here when we have a rhythm of worship we easily remember God and what He has done for us.  When we have a rhythm of study we have an opportunity to consistently draw close to God.  Rhythms help make us into the followers of God that He desires us to be.  Rhythms help keep us grounded and on track with our Father.

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Year 4, Day 77: Exodus 28

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: Protection

• Protection: In the Lord’s Prayer, God demonstrates that we are to pray that we should be “delivered from evil.”  We are to ask for God’s protection upon ourselves.  It is also absolutely proper to pray for God’s protection over those around us as well.

In Exodus 28 we see that Aaron is getting a robe.  One of the neat features of Aaron’s robe is that upon it is inscribed all the names of the Twelve Tribes of Israel.  Every time Aaron goes into the tabernacle he carries a reminder with him of the people.  He bears a witness to God about who God’s people actually are.

I think this is really neat.  When Aaron goes into worship, He is remembering the people around Him.  This is not too different from us remembering those around us in our prayers for protection.  As Aaron held the Hebrew people before God, so we too hold ourselves and others before God and ask for Him to watch over our lives.

This is a great reminder to us all.  God does not need us to hold others before Him in order to remember them.  But He desires that we do so.  He wants us to remember His people and to uplift them in our daily worship of Him in His presence.

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Year 4, Day 76: Expdus 27

Theological Commentary: Click Here 

Discipleship Focus: In

• In: This is the word we use to express our relationships with our spiritual family.  These are often the people who hold us spiritually accountable.  They are the ones to whom we typically go for discussion and discernment.  These are the ones with whom we learn to share leadership.  They are the ones with whom we become family on mission.

In Exodus 27 we seem to have a fairly harmless passage about the tabernacle and its division of space.  However, what we can see within that tabernacle set-up is that there are three distinct divisions in the space.  There is the common courtyard.  Then there are the two inner sanctums: the Holy Place and the Holy of Holies.  Anyone could access the common area.  Only a select few get access to the holy spaces.

I can’t help but think about this same division in relationships.  Anyone can see me – flaws and all.  But how many people really get a chance to look within me and see the holy space within me?  How many people really get a chance to see my character, sense my spirit, and feel how God is alive and active in my life?  How many people really truly get an opportunity to go deeper than what lies upon my surface?

For that matter, how many people truly get an opportunity to show me there spiritual being within?  How often do I get to experience someone else’s part in God at work in this world?

This is what being In means.  Being In with others means that we are vulnerable with them.  We let them see past the flawed façade that we create for others to see.  We let them into our spiritual being where we are growing and in need of care.  These are the ones that move past that outer courtyard and into the inner depths in our lives where God is truly at work.

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