Jesus: the perfect sacrifice

When I read the Jewish Scriptures, which we in Christendom refer to as the Old Testament, the home of the Old Covenant and the way people had to relate to God through the demands of the Law, I feel so grateful and blessed that God chose the New Covenant time following the writing of the Christian Scriptures, the New Testament, for me to be born into.

I am not under the unattainable demands of the Law, but under GRACE (Romans 6:14).

Whew! and Wow! Thank You, God.

As I read through the Bible and land in Leviticus, I am so grateful I do not have to know and remember all those hoops to jump through in order to worship God aright. But, I do like to look for glimmers of Jesus in it all.

All that HIStory leads to Him.

In reading Leviticus 3, the text said the sacrifice to be offered must be unblemished.

That got me to thinking about what we have to offer God on our own - only a blemished offering, sin-ridden and ugly at the core. So God fixed our problem for us so that we wouldn't have to be separate from Him and could live clean and close to Him, actually to be one with Him.

"But demonstrates His own love for us in this: 

while we were still sinners, 

Christ died for us" (Romans 5:8).

He provided the perfect sacrifice to take ALL the punishment for our sins. 

Christ, the Unblemished One, died in our place, taking all the wrath of God for our sins onto Himself.

"For God has not destined us for wrath, 

but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ,

 Who died for us so that 

whether we are awake or asleep 

we might live with Him" 

(1Thessalonians 5:9-10).

He accomplished what we never could or can on our own.

When we accept Him, taking His perfectly satisfying sacrifice as our own, He rebirths us as a new creation (2Corinthians 5:17). The old nature enslaved to sin is gone (Romans 6:6). We are unblemished and perfect in His sight (Ephesians 1:4). He died to wash away our sin (John 1:29). He rose again to give us new resurrection life (Romans 6:4)!

WE ARE NEW!!!

With His death, He took away our every sin (past, present, future). He cancels every record of our debt at our salvation or coming to belief in Him (Colossians 2:13-14). He remembers our sin no more (Hebrews 8:12, 10:17).

• He remakes us with a new heart set toward obedience to His will (Ezekiel 36:26, Hebrews 8:10, 10:16, Romans 6:17). 
• He set us free from sin and the Law to walk by His Spirit which indwells every believer helping us navigate life in a new and living way (Romans 7:4-6).
• We are sealed with His Spirit (Ephesians 1:13-14) and saved for eternity from the wrath of God which is reserved for the unrepentant sinner who rejects Jesus as Savior (Romans 1:18).
• We are saved to be His children who are zealous for good works which He prepared in advance for us to do (Titus 2:14, Ephesians 2:10).
• He is always at work in us, helping us to live out His purposes (Philippians 2:13) and making our behavior conform to Christ's character in us until our behavior matches up to the completeness of our identity in Him (Philippians 1:6; 1Thessalonians 5:23-24).

Jesus is the SOURCE, the Vine. Without Him, we can do nothing!

(John 15:5)