Leviticus: Cleaning Out the Gutters of My Life

Growing up, one of the annual jobs was to clean the gutters. With over 50 inches of rainfall a year, Florida homes have gutters to direct the water that runs down the roof to flow away from the home. What happens to clog gutters is leaves that had once been green on the trees, turn brown, fall, get trapped in the gutter and become a decomposing black slime. If that slime is not removed drainpipes plug up and water damage to your home occurs. Because of the decomposing black slime you had to pick up out of the gutters, this was not a great job to do. You put on some gloves, climb a ladder, get out a trash bag, and clean the gutters. From the ground you couldn’t see what lay ahead, what you could see is the damage done if the gutters stayed clogged as water would run everywhere when it rained. I hated cleaning the gutters. I can’t remember meeting anyone who loves the experience. 

The book of Leviticus is about cleaning life’s gutters. Too often, Leviticus is where reading through the Bible plans go to die. Yet reading through the Bible this year has led me once again to Leviticus where God deals with the decomposing black slime of sin. God also reveals how Israel can become clean and holy in His eyes and theirs. So what does Leviticus have to do with us today? I still see the effects of decomposing black slime of sin in life today, a relationship implodes, an addiction that won’t let go, a worry that erodes a heart, and fear of what the future holds from wars to elections. In Leviticus, God comes to clean the gutters. 

Thanks to Grady Window Cleaning for Picture

1. Leviticus helps me to diagnose the reality of my life. Let’s say you go to the doctor for a check up, and he finds some health problem. Do you want the truth or do you want him to merely say something positive to make you feel good? Instead of telling you about the pre-cancerous growth and how to deal with it, he says, “The good news is you still have your teeth.” When you go to the doctor, you want him to give it to you straight, you want the reality of your health life. Because God loves me, He gives it to me straight. He holds up the mirror of His law so I see the danger of my sin and my need for a Savior.

2. Leviticus invites me to receive God’s gift of holiness.  As someone put it, “Holiness is not the way to Christ; Christ is the way to holiness.” Holiness comes not based on what I can do, because I can’t do it. Holiness comes because of what only God can do. Some people wrongly think that because God has such a high standard of holiness that He is in the guilt business. But God is in the freedom business. God brings forgiveness to clean out the gutters of my heart. He even provided for forgiveness through sacrifice.

In Leviticus, sacrifice with blood was a key pattern for forgiveness. To deal with sin, blood had to be shed for forgiveness to be realized. On the Day of Atonement, two goats were brought forward, one goat as a sacrifice for sin, and the other for the community to confess its sins over and then to be sent into the desert as a scapegoat. Jesus carries our sins. He is the sacrifice and the scapegoat that we might be forgiven, and receive God’s gift of holiness. Jesus sacrifice provides gutter cleaning capability 24/7.

3. Leviticus invites me to embrace the abundant life God gives. Holy can be an intimidating word. Holy means pure, but it also means to set apart. Take the shirt I am wearing. When getting dressed, I had a number of options to choose from out of my closet, but this is what I chose. In the broadest sense of the word, this shirt is holy, because I set it apart for a special purpose. Making us holy, God invites us to embrace the abundant life He gives, to be set apart for the special purpose He has for our lives.

So how are you doing on embracing the life God offers? Are you driven to follow God’s commands out of fear and guilt, or out of gratitude for His love? Are you learning to find joy in following God’s commands, or is it always a chore? As God looks into your heart today, does He see it full of love for Him, partially full, or running dry? What clogs in your gutter need to be removed? Embracing the abundant life is embracing Jesus who gave His life for us, and gives His Spirit to empower us in living. We are holy because God makes us holy.

Leviticus reminds us God comes to us because He loves us. He wants us to diagnose the reality of our lives, He wants us to receive His gift of holiness, and to embrace the abundant life He gives. Why not receive His forgiveness today? Let Him clean out those gutters, and fill your heart with Himself and His holiness, and let the love and grace flow.

Finding Leadership Hope in the Book of Judges

Reading through the Bible in a year has brought me to the book of Judges. For many years, Judges came across as a bloody, brutal book that reveals what happens when “everyone did as they saw fit” (Judges 17:6). The book seems like an endless cycle of despair. Israel forgets, Israel falls, Israel cries out and God sends Judges.

But not just any judge or deliverer. God makes leaders out of anyone and anybody. Ehud in Judges 3 comes off as the left-handed judge. Literally the Hebrew says Ehud has something wrong with his right hand. No problem for God, he turns Ehud into a left handed warrior and a leader is born. God can make anyone a leader.

Thank you to Arvind Balaraman / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Deborah is a woman, not a great thing to be if you want to be a leader in the Old Testament. But Deborah leads the way. She’s not only a judge, she’s a prophetess. She even writes her own song, her own chapter in the Bible. God can make anyone a leader.

Gideon’s name means “the one who sits down.” Not really a name that will bring fear to one’s enemies. Ever heard of a leader called “the Great Sitter”? Gideon even sees himself as the bottom rung of the ladder — least clan of the tribe, least member of the family. Gideon can’t go any lower, but God can make anyone a leader and he turns in Gideon into a “Mighty Warrior.”

Out numbered 4 to 1, the odds in God’s eyes are not fair. So God takes Gideon’s band of warriors to being outnumbered 450 to 1, still not fair when God is on your side. God can make anyone a leader.

That’s the leadership hope I find in the book of Judges, God can make anyone a leader — Samson, the lustful strong Judge. Jephthah, the illegitimate saving judge. A whole series of minor judges who are listed but whose stories are not well known. What is know from the Book of Judges is God can make anyone a leader.

That gives me hope. For what God did in Judges is what God still can do today. In a world where everyone does as they see fit.” We still need to cry out to God to deliver, and to still believe God can make leaders out of anyone. And here’s the best part, that anyone includes you and me.

Whatever is holding you back. Whatever is your physical weakness or spiritual failure, don’t give up. We still need leaders and God can still use you. That’s where I am finding hope in the book of Judges. How about you, who is your favorite Judge / Deliverer in the book of Judges? And perhaps even more important where is God calling you to lead? You are one of the anyone’s He’s making into a leader.