Discerning (Lev. 11:44-47)

9/9/2008 8:22 AM

My Worship Time                    Focus:  Discerning

Bible Reading & Meditation               Reference:  Leviticus 11:44-47

            Message of the verses:  “44  ‘For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. And you shall not make yourselves unclean with any of the swarming things that swarm on the earth.  45  ‘For I am the LORD who brought you up from the land of Egypt to be your God; thus you shall be holy, for I am holy.’"  46  This is the law regarding the animal and the bird, and every living thing that moves in the waters and everything that swarms on the earth,

47  to make a distinction between the unclean and the clean, and between the edible creature and the creature which is not to be eaten.”

            Discerning is the next thing that refers back to the statement that Warren Wiersbe makes at the beginning of his chapter where he writes, “In order to maintain ceremonial purity, each Jew had to obey God’s law in several areas of life,” and discerning is the area of life being discussed this morning.

            There is much packed into these three verses and hopefully I will do justice in unpacking some of the things that are here.  Two times in these three verses God tells the children of Israel to “Be holy for I am holy.”  In this section being holy has to do with discerning, and that is how chapter eleven is wrapped up with kind of a summery of what has been discussed in the first forty-three verses of the chapter.

            The children of Israel were to keep themselves clean by not eating or touching certain things that God said were unclean and if they did touch certain unclean things they were to wash themselves and also their clothes in order to be clean again.  By doing this in the physical way they would stop the spread of any possible germs that they may have come in contact with by touching something unclean.  Spiritually speaking this is similar to Jesus washing the disciple’s feet which was a picture of a believer in Christ sinning and therefore needing to confess his sins to the Lord in order to be cleansed from his sins.  He had become in a sense unclean or out of fellowship with God because of the sin and was in need of a spiritual bath. 

            Discerning is a difficult part of the Christian walk, and one needs to have a good knowledge of God’s Word in order to “walk worthy of your calling with which you were called,” as Paul writes in Ephesians 4:1. 

            In verse forty-five Moses, through God, reminds his readers that He had brought the children out of Egypt, and God did this through a series of great miracles in order to free them from being slaves.  God, through His Son Jesus Christ, has performed a great miracle for all of those who believe in Him by taking them out of the slave market of sin and giving them the righteousness of God, and just as the children of Israel were to walk worthy of their calling so believers today are to walk worthy of their calling by obeying the commands of the Lord, by discerning right from wrong, and doing what is right.

            “13  When we tell you this, we do not use words of human wisdom. We speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths.

14  But people who aren’t Christians can’t understand these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them because only those who have the Spirit can understand what the Spirit means.

15  We who have the Spirit understand these things, but others can’t understand us at all.

16  How could they? For, "Who can know what the Lord is thinking? Who can give him counsel?" But we can understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.”

            Dr. Wiersbe writes that Vance Havner said on commenting on these verses from 1 Cor. 2:13-16, “Nothing is more rare in churches today tan discernment.  The natural man knows nothing of it, the carnal man is devoid of it.  Only the spiritual man has it and we have all to few in that category.”

            Spiritual meaning for my life today:  “I don’t think that I can put myself in the category that Vance Havner writes about, (the last category), not because I don’t know what are the discerning things to do, for I think that I do, but because I keep getting caught in doing some of these things over and over that I discern that are wrong.  I will keep on trust the Lord to give me strength in overcoming these things in order to walk more worthy of my calling.

My Steps of Faith for Today:

1. Trust the Lord to give me the strength to get through this day without being troubled so much by IBS.
2. Give myself to the Lord this morning.
3. Put on the spiritual armor.
4. Trust the Lord to teach me the ways that I can learn contentment.

Memory verses for the week                                   Exodus 20:7-10

7. You shall not take the name of the Lord your God in vain, for the Lord will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.
8. Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
9. Six days you shall labor and do all your work,
10. but the seventh is a Sabbath of the Lord your God; in it you shall not do any work, you or your son or your daughter, your male or your female servant or your cattle or your sojourner who stays with you.

9/9/2008 9:31 AM