How detailed is God?
28 The LORD spoke to Moses: 29 “Tell the Israelites: The one who presents a fellowship sacrifice to the LORD must bring an offering to the LORD from his sacrifice. 30 His own hands will bring the fire offerings to the LORD. He will bring the fat together with the breast. The breast is to be waved as a presentation offering before the LORD. 31 The priest is to burn the fat on the altar, but the breast belongs to Aaron and his sons. 32 You are to give the right thigh to the priest as a contribution from your fellowship sacrifices. 33 The son of Aaron who presents the blood of the fellowship offering and the fat will have the right thigh as a portion. 34 I have taken from the Israelites the breast of the presentation offering and the thigh of the contribution from their fellowship sacrifices, and have assigned them to Aaron the priest and his sons as a permanent portion from the Israelites.” Leviticus 7:28-34 HCSB
Some years ago I had the opportunity to speak before a convention of pastors. I present the point that God is involved with every detailed aspect of our lives. Everything that we do, eat, wear, watch, spend our time on, etc. was important to God and should be under His direction. I was appalled at the response from these preachers: they laughed, they joked, and they made fun of the issue! Was I wrong?
Here in Leviticus God is telling Moses how to present a particular sacrifice: the fellowship offering. There were many sacrifices, offerings, and laws for the children of Israel to follow. In fact, if you study the book of Leviticus, you will find that God directed every aspect of how the tabernacle was designed, built, who built it, what the priests would wear, how their clothes were designed, when they would change clothes, etc. etc. Their every action was detailed.
So, that was Old Testament stuff – not important, huh? Well, I could argue against that all day, but that would take too much time and you would not read it anyways. However, consider this: the Old Testament was (among other things) a revelation of the nature of God. Just because we are under the era of Grace doesn’t mean that God changes – He is the same “yesterday, today, and forever” the Bible says. So if He was that interested in the details of their lives during the days of Moses, I suspect that He is just as interested in the details of our lives today!
I think it would be wise to consider how we should dress today, what we should eat today, what we should do to pass our time today, how we should spend our efforts at work, at home, or in entertainment today – all in the light of what God’s opinion is of each of those activities. We need to be much more involved in present Jesus Christ in every aspect of our lives than we ever have been!
