Monday after the Thirteenth Sunday after Trinity Sunday
Posted on August 30, 2021 by under
Scripture: Leviticus 18:1-5 (NKJV)
18:1 Then the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: ‘I am the Lord your God. 3 According to the doings of the land of Egypt, where you dwelt, you shall not do; and according to the doings of the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you, you shall not do; nor shall you walk in their ordinances. 4 You shall observe My judgments and keep My ordinances, to walk in them: I am the Lord your God. 5 You shall therefore keep My statutes and My judgments, which if a man does, he shall live by them: I am the Lord.
Devotion
Moses is commanded to begin with exactly the words God used in making His treaty at Mt. Sinai. The Lord identifies Himself in terms of His essence and His actions. “I am the Lord,” God says; that is, “Yahweh/Jehovah,” meaning “He Who Is Self-Existing and Dependent on No Other.” That is the underlying reality of His name, indicated by the “I am that I am,” which He gave Moses at the burning bush. He is His own cause and, therefore, none can end Him, supersede Him, deliver from Him, or prevent His doing as He promises or as He threatens.
When He joins this already awesome name with “God” (“Elohim,” “Mighty One”), He does so in a way that makes those names a comfort and kindles the desire to do as He says: He inserts the pronoun “your.” “I am the Lord, your God,” which is a shorthand reminder of the fuller expression in Exodus 20, which continues, “who brought you out of Egypt, the House of Bondage; You will have no other gods.” In this reading (and the chapters of Leviticus that follow), He fleshes out some specifics in how they were to live as those saved from bondage by His grace alone.
This prefatory statement of principle governs our understanding of what He commands and of how He gives righteousness: not by walking after the ways or wisdom of those humans and false gods He was conquering, but only by seeing from His Word what is “the Way, the Truth, and the Life,” even our Lord Jesus Christ.
Prayer: Almighty and Everlasting God, give unto us the increase of faith, hope, and charity; and that we may obtain that which Thou dost promise, make us to love that which Thou dost command; through Jesus Christ, Thy Son, our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee and the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
