{"id":4247,"date":"2022-09-14T21:20:49","date_gmt":"2022-09-15T02:20:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nazareneblogs.org\/pastorscott\/?p=4247"},"modified":"2022-09-14T21:20:49","modified_gmt":"2022-09-15T02:20:49","slug":"devotional-on-leviticus-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/devotional-on-leviticus-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Devotional on Leviticus"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure style=\"width: 1600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/1.bp.blogspot.com\/-4QRUMwr6oeE\/XST1mUnwSBI\/AAAAAAAA9Mk\/qrRqqMIduqsBi9zven9CJsLIMnXgsxdqACKgBGAs\/s1600\/100_2812.JPG\" width=\"1600\" height=\"901\" class=\"size-large\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">2014 &#8211; Point Whitehorn Marine Reserve &#8211; near Birch Bay, WA<\/figcaption><\/figure><br \/>\nI didn\u2019t mean to<br \/>\nLeviticus 4: If the whole congregation sins unintentionally&#8230;they become guilty even though no one is aware of it.<br \/>\nA group of children are playing in the yard when one accidentally knocks another to the ground.  Soon there\u2019s lots of crying, some because of pain and mostly because of anger.  Mom comes to see what\u2019s wrong.  Billy says, \u201cJohnny knocked me down!\u201d  Johnny responds, \u201cI didn\u2019t mean to.\u201d  Mom tells Johnny to apologize to his friend because, intentionally or not, he has wronged him.  In this passage, as the law is given every contingency is covered, including unintentional sins.  God tells them that when they fail at some point, even if they don\u2019t know it at the time, that they\u2019re to take action to make things right.  In this instance, he isn\u2019t talking about making restitution to a neighbor who&#8217;s been intentionally wronged.   Instead, the Lord\u2019s talking about making things right with himself.  Like Johnny, we tend to stiffen and declare that we didn\u2019t do it on purpose.  Our theologians might debate about the level of guilt and work through the definition of sin but they all agree that, intentional or not, failure is an affront to God.  Jesus, when he teaches his disciples to pray, instructs them to ask for forgiveness even as they forgive others.  When I realize I\u2019ve failed the Lord my response isn\u2019t to be a declaration of innocence.  Rather, it\u2019s to be an honest confession and an effort to make things right.  For these ancient Israelites that meant they needed to make an absolution-offering.  For me, it may only require my sincere confession of failure and apology to the Lord.  One thing that won\u2019t work is for me to stiffen up and declare that it wasn\u2019t on purpose.<br \/>\nTake Away: The proper response to a realization of failure is to confess and repent.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I didn\u2019t mean to Leviticus 4: If the whole congregation sins unintentionally&#8230;they become guilty even though no one is aware of it. A group of children are playing in the yard when one accidentally knocks another to the ground. Soon there\u2019s lots of crying, some because of pain and mostly because of anger. Mom comes [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1513,7],"tags":[140,206,336,913,919],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4247"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4247"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13897,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4247\/revisions\/13897"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/localhost\/pastorscott\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}