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Leviticus 3:1-4, If your offering is a fellowship offering, and you offer an animal from the herd, whether male or female, you are to present before the Lord an animal without defect.  You are to lay your hand on the head of your offering and slaughter it at the entrance to the tent of meeting. Then Aaron’s sons the priests shall splash the blood against the sides of the altar. From the fellowship offering you are to bring a food offering to the Lord: the internal organs and all the fat that is connected to them, both kidneys with the fat on them near the loins, and the long lobe of the liver, which you will remove with the kidneys.

This is a bloody chapter!  We read about choosing an animal without defect for the sacrifice, how to slaughter it, and then specifics about what to do with the blood and organs.  It’s actually kind of gory for those of us who buy our meat neatly wrapped in cellophane in the stores.  But the violence of the sacrifice was kind of the point.  The animal was losing its life because of the sins of the people.  It underscored the severity and consequences of sin.

While we no longer have to perform animal sacrifices, we can’t dismiss the consequences of sin.  Jesus died as the final sacrifice for our sins, so that we could be in right relationship with God.  However, that doesn’t mean we are free to go on sinning!  When we truly understand the gift of God’s amazing grace, we become transformed people.  That doesn’t mean we won’t mess up because we will but we recognize that our sin creates a wedge between us and God.  It damages our relationships with others.  As the Holy Spirit begins to change us from the inside out, we become convicted of our sin, repent, and seek to do better.  I think an important part of this is recognizing that we cannot do better on our own, but only through the power of God working in us.  It is God who makes us a new creation.  We are weak but he is strong.

Let’s pray…God, thank you for Jesus who made it possible for us to walk closely with you.  How grateful I am!  I know I mess up.  Please forgive me, Lord.  I want to do better.  Work within in, change my heart, so I can better reflect Jesus to those around me.  In Your Name, Amen.