the burnt offering is mainly related to our daily living. this means that, if we do not experience Christ in our daily living, we will not be able to offer Christ as our burnt offering. everyday, while we are loving the Lord, experiencing and enjoying the Lord, we are brought into the death of Christ, being skinned and cut into pieces. this should be our daily experience, who follow the Lord Jesus today. in order to live such a life, we need Phillipians 3:10, "To know Him and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death," in order for us to be able to be conformed to His death, we first need to know the power of His resurrection. as we live in such a way, we will be able to offer a bull when we come to church meetings. the difference between bull and herd, is that there is no skinning when offering a lamb or goat, which means the offerer has experienced Christ's crucifixion, and to certain degree, the cutting into pieces, but not yet being skinned. for those who bring a pair of birds, he may be saved recently, and begin to appreciate that Christ is the One who lives a life absolutely for God, but in his daily living, there is not yet this kind of experience. all these three offerings are good and will be accepted by God. but, at the Lord's table meeting, we are too lacking the burnt offerings with a rich review, display and demonstration of daily experiences of Christ. this lacking should make us desparate to enter into deeper and richer experiences of Christ in our daily living, so that God can be more satisfied at meeting.
when we offer burnt offerings to God, we should not offer ourselves or our experiences. we should offer Christ to God, yet, this Christ is the Christ whom we have experienced, not merely Christ. we need to offer to God as a burnt offering the Christ whom we have experienced in our daily life. and our urgent need today is to experience Christ more and more everyday.
some other aspects in the burnt offering
1. the water: signifies the Spirit o life, keeping us away from all the defiling factors. the washing of the inward parts and legs is a review of our experiences of Christ's life, a life in wich He was continually washed by the indwelling Holy Spirit from any contaminating factor.
2. the fire: signifies the holy God. this fire has two functions. on the one hand, the fire, for the burnt offering, is the accepting fire for God's satisfaction; on the other hand, the fire, for the sin offering, is the judging fire for man's redepmtion.
3. the burning: this burning causes the smoke to go up, which becomes the satisfying fragrance for God to enjoy.
4. the ashes: Psalms 20:3 says, "May He remember all your meal offerings and accept your burnt offerings. " the Hebrew word "accept" here means "turn to ashes". for God to consume all burnt offerings and turn into ashes, means that He accepts the offerings. this is totally different from the world view. the world may regard the ashes as nothing. but in the eyes of God, the ashes are the sign of His acceptance. and in our eyes, the ashes are precious, because this is the assurance that God has accepted our offerings.
for more detailed reading, please see life study of Levitcus message 6
P.S.
you can support me by clicking the following banners......thank you :-)
アクセス
トータル
ランキング
