Week 14 Monday
Today we look at the burnt offering in Leviticus, join David in his thirst for God in the wilderness, and watch Philip obey the Spirit's leading to a desert road in Acts.
Leviticus 1
📖 What are we reading? The opening chapter of the challenging book of Leviticus, describing the burnt offering - the first of five offerings God's people were to bring Him.
✞ What does this passage say about God? Jesus is in the details of these rituals. Peter Pell suggests the animals of the burnt offering all point to Christ: the bull, His patient work; the sheep, His meekness; the goat, His substitution for us; the turtledove, His heavenly nature.
🛐 How does this passage teach us to live? Leviticus calls us to lives of holiness and separation - offered wholly to God, just as Christ offered Himself for us.
Looking for some extra info?
➡️ The bigger picture: Leviticus was revealed to Moses in the wilderness, soon after the tabernacle's completion, and no other book in the Bible contains as much direct speech from God. Its theme is holiness - showing Israel, and us, how a holy God can dwell among His people.
Psalm 63
📖 What are we reading? David's psalm of deep thirst for God, written in the wilderness. Notice verse 3 - it's a favourite of mine, and one worth holding onto today.
✞ What does this passage say about God? His love is better than life itself! He is our help, and we can behold His power and might in the sanctuary.
🛐 How does this passage teach us to live? We are to seek God as earnestly, and as thirstily, as David did here, in a world that can offer us no water.
Looking for some extra info?
📝 A devotion series on finding God in the desert, based on this psalm.
♫ Worship through this psalm with Luke.
➡️ The bigger picture: The Psalms is a collection of 150 poems and songs, written by David and others, expressing the full range of human emotion in response to God and to life.
Acts 8:26-40
📖 What are we reading? Philip is sent to a desert road, where he meets an Ethiopian official reading Isaiah - and leads him to faith and baptism.
✞ What does this passage say about God? He orchestrates specific encounters to bring people to Himself - even sending an angel to direct Philip to one man, on one road, in the middle of nowhere.
🛐 How does this passage teach us to live? We should be ready to explain the Scriptures when the opportunity arises, and obedient enough to go where the Spirit sends us - even to a desert road.
Looking for some extra info?
📝 A devotion about Philip baptising the eunuch.
➡️ The bigger picture: Luke's second book outlines the ministry of the early church - though it could just as well be called the Acts of the Holy Spirit, as He guides and grows Jesus' small movement into something that changes the world.
A Prayer for the Day
🙏 Lord, thank You that Your holiness reaches into every detail of our lives. Help us to thirst for You as David did, and to obey Your Spirit's leading wherever it takes us today. Amen.
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