Prayer: Father, may I understand that You have set me apart from my culture to belong wholly to You. Amen.
Reading: Leviticus 20 Key: vs. 26
26 You are to be holy to Me, for I, Adonai, am holy, and have set you apart from the peoples, so that you would be Mine.
Attention: Do you remember when you were young and being told not to run out in the street or to cross the street without looking? Why did our parents tell us those instructions? It was to protect us from danger. Why does a loving God give us boundaries and instructions too? For our own good and He is God.
I remember a classmate in junior high declaring how much he hated his dad and his rules. What gives him the right to tell me what to do? My rationale was always in relation to my theological positions. If God created the world, and He did, if He by virtue of creation owns the world, He holds the rights to making the rules. By comparison, if my dad brought me into the world, he works and provides a home and food, he holds certain rights to make the rules.
According to the apostle Paul, when we come to Yeshua, there is a transition in ownership. We are no longer slaves of sin (evil, darkness, wickedness) but slaves of righteousness. We receive our identity, our lifestyle instructions and narrative from the Holy Spirit inspired scriptures. Not from society or our culture.
In this twentieth chapter of Leviticus, Adonai tells Moses who relays the message to Bnei-Yisrael, you belong to Me and you shall not practice the act of child sacrifice unto Molech as you see in other cultures. You shall also not have anything to do with those who practice cultic worship (soothsayers, mediums, witches, cultic seers, etc.) unto to pagan deities or satan and his demons.
Who do we “choose” to listen to? Our instruction manual is the scriptures. Let’s not be naïve or unaware. God has spoken to the Hebrew nation. He has spoken to us. The issues are very black and white, there is no gray or middle ground. Choose this day who you will follow.
Action: Knowing how Adonai feels about child sacrifice and the occult, I choose today to embrace a lifestyle of obedience to His instruction.
Yield: I yield my thoughts and will to the will of Adonai.
Engage: I choose to walk in step with the instruction of Adonai.
Relationship: I choose to live in obedience to Adonai.
Prayer: Father, I praise You for the loving instructions You gave the Hebrew children and how the post resurrection message mirrors Your instruction to them. May we separate ourselves from the culture’s narrative and embrace the narrative You declare! Amen.
Memory Verse: Romans 6:17-18
17 But thanks be to God that though you were slaves of sin, you wholeheartedly obeyed the form of teaching under which you were placed; 18 and after you were set free from sin, you became enslaved to righteousness.
Music Video: Linda Cofer and the Circuit Riders—Obedience https://youtu.be/6jjpEK83jYI
Remember, “Abide in Yeshua, today!”