In reading Your Word today, Lord, I noticed a curious thing: what is demanded of the priest (Leviticus 21:16–24) is also demanded of the sacrifice (Leviticus 22:17–25). In fact, the wording in both cases is almost the same!
This speaks forcibly to me. I cannot divorce myself from my service to You. I cannot have one standard for myself and another, different standard for my service. I must not perform beautifully as a teacher, speaker, or musician and then live personally on a shoddy basis. What is true of one must be true of the other.
My service to God must be unblemished (Leviticus 22:20), which means all sins confessed. It also must be whole, entire, unmutilated (see vv. 22, 24), which means I cannot be halfhearted about it. And it must be nonalien (v. 25), which means I cannot offer someone else’s service and call it mine. If I offered myself to God blemished, broken, and alien, I would never be saved! My service, therefore, cannot be offered God on any plane that is lower than when I offered Him my soul for salvation.
I find myself shocked when I compare a person’s performance with what I see in his life. His performing artistry woos and impresses me; yet when I look closely at him, I see brokenness, blemish, and mutilation. That distresses and puzzles me. Lord! What causes me even more anguish is this question: Do others find the same inconsistency in me? One thing is sure: God demands consistency; and if I, or any disciple, come up lacking, I must relentlessly root out the disparities until both life and service are one.
Am I sufficient for these things? Never! But “our sufficiency is God-given. And He has qualified us to be ministers of a new covenant” (2 Corinthians 3:5–6, Berkeley). Thank God for His sufficiency!
“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the surpassing greatness of the power may be of God and not from ourselves” (2 Corinthians 4:7).
Daily with the King 