Daily Devotion

Throughout these devotions, I refer to my personal Bible reading journals, and have mentioned the first Bible reading journal I ever wrote was in 1983. I started reading my Bible at age fifteen after a car accident where I gave my life to the Lord. After doing so, I heard a voice say, “There’s a Bible on your bookshelf; get it down and read it.” At fifteen years old, I began reading the Bible.

I started with a chapter a day and finished the Bible three and a half yearts later, and started over. I have been a daily Bible reader since I was fifteen years old. I started journaling my Bible reading at twenty-eight. At twenty-eight years old, I had been married for eight years and had three children. I was working on the legislative staff of the State Legislature in the Capitol in Denver, Colorado.

As a young guy with a young family, with three young children, I still found time to read the Word of God each and every day. That year, I read various books of the Bible, including Leviticus. I read chapters 1-3 on the same day and wrote in my journal, “Burnt offering, grain offering, peace offering. The lesson I could learn from that was, you cannot go to God without death and blood as an atonement for sin.”

By 1991, eight years later, I had been married sixteen years and had a couple of teenagers in the house. I was no longer working at the State Capitol, but doing some business consulting at the time. That year I was reading the whole Old Testament, so that is why I read so many chapters at once. I read chapters 1-9 on the day. It takes a quicker pace to read the whole Old Testament in one year.

I shared this journal entry before, but I will share it again. I wrote, “Why did God get so specific on their sacrifices, and the fat, lobe of liver, blood, how to kill the animal, which way to throw certain things? Why is death the reminder of God? Lay your hands on the animal and slaughter it. Smoke offerings to God, a sweet aroma? I realize when sin entered into the world, death came with it. Are all these deaths a constant reminder of our sinful nature and the need for atonement for sin? One thing for sure, when God appears, they shouted and fell on their faces. We will do the same.”

By 2006, Terry and I had been married for thirty-one years. By this time, all the children were out of the house, and I had started the Ezra Project in 2002. That year, I was reading the Bible according to The Gideons International calendar. In other words, the whole Bible in a year, some New Testament and some Old Testament every day.

To read the whole Bible in a year is also a quick pace. It takes the average person at least twenty minutes a day to read the whole Bible in a year. In that year, I read Leviticus 1-3 on the same day and wrote in my personal Bible reading journal about these three chapters, “Burnt offerings for atonement of sin, grain offerings for thanks to God, peace offerings for peace between God and man. Leviticus, a book of holiness, an instruction on how to worship God.”

By 2014, Terry and I had been married nearly forty years. We were empty-nesters at the time. My career was split between the Ezra Project and business consulting. We were grandparents, and I was still reading the Bible each and every day of my life.

In 2014, I read the Bible chronologically. That means I read the whole Bible that year and that is why I read Leviticus 1-5 all on the same day. Afterward, I wrote in my personal Bible reading journal, “Leviticus means ‘he called.’ The book spells out how to be holy according to God. God describes burnt offerings, grain offerings, peace offerings, and sin offerings. He knew people would not want to worship Him and He knew we would sin. Chapter 4 provides ways to make atonement for sin and be forgiven. Something had to die, bloodshed, to be forgiven. Thank You from the beginning for allowing atonement and forgiveness of sin.”

Those are my personal Bible reading journal entries concerning these chapters. Let’s look at Leviticus 3. According to my English Standard Version Study Bible footnote, the peace offering:

achieves and expresses peace or fellowship between an offerer and the Lord. The ritual as a whole symbolizes a communion meal that is held between the offerer, the officiating priest, and the Lord. In Old Testament times such meals were a means of affirming a covenant relationship. Generally speaking, this offering was a time to remember and reaffirm the covenant relationship between the Lord and Israel (p. 219).

The procedure of this ritual involving a bull is the same as that of the burnt offering, up until the shedding of blood. Only the fatty parts of the animal, instead of all of it, are to be burned up. The fat in ancient Israel represented the very best part of the animal . . . the filet mignon, i.e., the most succulent and savory part of the animal. To present this to the Lord was a way of acknowledging that he was the One worthy of most honor (p. 219).

Since the peace offering was the one offering of which the offerer partook, it makes sense for this chapter to end by underscoring the two parts of the animal of which the offerer was never to partake, namely, the fat and the blood. The fat represented the very best part of the animal (as was already mentioned). As such, it was to be given to the Lord as the One worthy of most honor. The blood was reserved for a very special purpose: atoning for the life of the Israelites. As a result, it too must not be consumed (p. 220).

A peace offering consisted of sheep, cattle, or goats. The blood was poured on the sides of the altar but not consumed. And the filet mignon, the best part of the cattle, the fatty part, was offered up to the One who deserved it, the Most Holy God.