The Faith Beyond Trauma Podcast

FBT Daily Devotional: Leviticus 27

• Pastor Reggie

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We close Leviticus by tracing how vows, votive gifts, and first fruits turn gratitude into action. A story of unexpected help reframes generosity as a lived witness to a set-apart life in a modern economy.

• holiness as being set apart expressed in conduct
• Jesus as Redeemer shaping inside-out change
• votive vows as gifts after answered prayer
• weight of words and public accountability
• story of angelic help prompting returned thanks
• first fruits as honoring God at the start
• modern translation of giving time, talent, treasure
• gratitude that becomes visible practice

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, cool. Um, this morning we get to this morning we get to wrap up the book of Leviticus, and my apologies for the speakers. Um, I just I guess I want us to continue in the book of Leviticus. If it's been a lot of fun listening to this particular study, it touches on a few different things. Mostly the the conduct of the Levites, which we know where the people set of God as priests unto the Lord. And then thus excuse me, it's spilled over into the holiness from us to God, which means to be set apart. To be holy means simply to be set apart. So this is what it means to be holy. This is how it looks. These are some external practices that were required of the people back in the day. Now, I'm not under the impression that God doesn't require external practices from us as well. But I do know, we do know, that over the years we like to say that men, people weren't able to measure up. So he sent a redeemer for us. And in this particular chapter, it talks about that concept. Um, so this Redeemer, which we know is Jesus, what he did, he changed us inside out. So we still have the external piety, the external signs of religion, the external signs of holiness. Because what it does, it shows the world that, hey, I belong to God. And you can tell that there's a difference. We're peculiar people by the way I talk, the way I walk, the way I conduct my business, the way I go through things as well. Not saying that we don't have difficulty and suffering. We do. We're not outside the world, we're in the world, but the way that we maneuver through it is different. Why? Because of our relationship with the great I am. So in chapter 27, um, as I was reading through it, um, it's a lot of uh monetary value being assessed to a lot of different things. And what came, what stood out to me was um there is a concept what's called a voc, a vocative or votive V-O-T-I-V-E offering or give. This is a type of free will offering, a free will give. Um, if I were to compare it, know how like we churchy people talk a lot about fleecing God, right? We like to say, God, if you do this for me, then I'll do that for you. Um, or if you um answered or or Medea, if you've seen the Tyler Perry movies, uh Medea talks all the time about um God do this for me, I'll go by the church, right? And so it's similar, honestly. That's the actual type of content, a couple of a vodka give V-O-T-I-V-E. And we we see this in chapter 27. What this means is if you give get a answered prayer, back in the day, you didn't just say thank you, Lord, and go back to business. You gave thanks by giving a gift or giving an offering. You were so moved to for gratitude for what God did for you that you gave something back. Um a couple of examples of this, one positive, one negative. There's a man of God, he's he's transitioned now. Um he he tells a story about how he was in the Midwest, I think somewhere one day, and he ran, he had car issues, he had car trouble. And so what happened was um he pulled up the side of the road, not knowing what's going on, late at night, early in the morning. You know, okay, can't really flag anybody down. So all of a sudden, some headlights come up behind him, and he sees it, it's like, oh, okay. Um, and the person gets out of the car, acts him what's wrong, hooks up his car, take it to a local um mechanic shop, opens the door, goes inside of everything. Um he has something with the fuel line. I think the fuel line was cut. Patch up the field line, put some more gas in the car. This is at nighttime, of course, and then he's able to go along his way. Uh then the man kept saying, I was sent for this, I was sent for this, I was sent for this. And so the way that this man was was raised in his faith, once you have something like that, you sow a seed, you give an offer. There'll be a vod of offer, V-O-T-I-V-E, where you show your gratitude. Yes, you say thank you, don't get me wrong, but you come back around and you sow C, you pay for it. And so what he did the next day, he came back around. Probably started with the bad, with the poor example first. Uh, he came back around and he finds the area where he ran out of gas at. And so he um goes in and he notices that the place looks abandoned. So he looks around, like, okay, what's going on? I know this is the place I was I was brought to last night. Um, so he goes out, he looks, and he goes up the window, looks like nobody's been there or nobody's there at the time. Um, goes to the door, tried to open the door, no one's there. There's a little restaurant right beside it, goes there, asks the owner, hey, do you know who owns the store beside you? I mean, the the dealership, the mechanic shop beside you. Um, somebody brought me there last night, really took care of me. I just wanted to come back and just bless them, just show my appreciation. The guy was like, No one's been there for 30 years. Um, what happens is there's no electricity, there's a couple of gas, uh bays, I'm gonna call it bays, it might not be the right word, out front. What happens is they have been completely drained. And so he was like, What do you mean? Somebody, a man bought me to this place last night. He bought me in and he uh we we talked, he patched up my fuel line, gave me a full tuck of gas, and I went on my way. He was like, sir, I promise you, no one has been there or done it for 30 years. So, in this example, it was an example of an angelic visitation at that particular time. But most importantly, for our example, yes, an angelic visitation. Angels are real, messengers to send to protect us. And so uh that's why the Bible says, be careful how you treat people because some of us have entertained angels unaware. So, what he was doing, he was giving a vibe of gift. He was coming back around. Hey, I said thank you last night. I was really grateful, but I'm coming back around with resources, with finances in Leviticus chapter 27. It tells you what that looks like. Um, and so once you are vowing to God, hey God, because you did this for me, hey God, because you blah blah blah, I'm so grateful. I'm going to give you boom, boom, boom, boom. Now, your words matter. Your words matter. So when you say that, when the person said this, now mind you, just they may have been praying in the tabernacle, in the tent. They haven't been praying, so this is a public thing. Of course, we pray in private. Yeah, God, but God, thank you, God. Whoa. But they were doing this public. So because other people heard that. So they not only heard you praying, but they said they heard you say, it may have been a priest, may have been somebody beside you. Hey, if God, if when you do this, I'm gonna come back and do this. Now, this was an offering over and above the top. 10% was God. The offering was this was part of the offering. And so, this vi of kill in Leviticus chapter 27, he gives a different rules and regulation about that. And so that was fun for me to remember. Um, I did have a sad example, but fortunately we ran out of a little long time, so I'm not gonna go with that. Let's just leave on the mindset of divine visitation. But there is a concept of vital to where God, because you've done so much for me, you bless me. I'm so grateful. Oh, I show my gratitude, is not only give you thanks, not only give you my life, but I give you a little bit of the resources as well over and above. Um, it also gets into um a first fruit offering a little bit. It talks a little bit about that, not really in detail, but it talks about the first fruit offering. Um you may have heard Pastor Carrick say, I think in December, um he called it some different name for it. There is a thing called a first fruit, and what that is, is that's a special offering above and beyond the other ones that you gave throughout the year. And so um, this is one that's saying, all right, God, you've blessed us over and above. You've not only met our needs, but you've gone above. So, what I'm gonna do, I'm gonna give you a percentage of what I've earned and give that back as you offer. So, as you see, the concept of giving and receiving, giving and receiving is huge in the Bible. And yes, this is resources. Uh, back in the day it was a little bit easier on the surface because it was all grain, it was agriculture. But now in this modern-based society, well, that's not how it works. Um, God is still the same. Not only does he want your life, he wants your time, talent, treasure. And he wants your time, talent, treasure. Nothing's nothing changed. He's still the same guy. And so we get an opportunity in our own way to um to build on that. So this is called a Vada V-O-T V-O-T-I-V-E gift. And with that, um, it's over and above. This was once again given out of gratitude. Given God, because you've done this, because you've answered this prayer, you met this request. I gotta do something for you. And it remains the same to this day. So with that being said, I'm respecting time. Right at 15, I'm gonna pause now. Get these groups open, and we'll come back and tie it all together.