Hi everyone,
I have moved to a new blog in WordPress, http://www.dondivirrey.wordpress.com. I pray that you follow me there as well. I will be posting in this blog primarily. Thank you and see you on the other site. 
God bless and thank you.
Sincerely,
Dondi
As I begin with the Book of Numbers, I find myself reflecting on God's exactness. I see how perfect He is regarding details. I read His assignment on where the tribes should camp in reference to the Tent of Meeting. He also assigned those who are to serve His army and those who are to be His priests. He specified the tasks of the Levites.
I will put my dwelling place among you, and I will not abhor you. Lev. 26:11
Reading Leviticus has been pretty rough if you were looking for the inspiring verses to awaken you to write. Before I started reading Leviticus, I was on a roll, writing a blog entry for my “devotionals” category. Everyday, the Word revealed something to me, exposed clearly what I should be writing about.
However, when I hit Leviticus, I realized that writing everyday to keep up with my expectations became more of me and not more of God. My desire to keep my devotional perfect and consistent was a standard I imposed on myself and not the Spirit’s.
So, I took a hiatus in writing, and focused on my relationship with God. I read slowly and as gracious as I can Leviticus. I was still looking for inspiring verses so that I can write again. But it became difficult to come across such verses since the book was about His laws and procedures, which also stated the repercussions of not abiding on those laws. The book was all about doing. And I wanted to write about grace.
Then I remembered, “Just as the body is dead without breath, so also faith is dead without good works.” James 2:26 (NLT)
Faith to Works, and NOT Works = Faith, is cause and effect. It is a cycle. When we received our salvation from Christ, our lives changed. We became better from who we were and our lives became less restrictive and more inclusive. We want people we care for to experience the joy we experience, which lead us to ministry. From the faith we have, our heart overflows with His love, which we extend service to others. From the Faith we have received from Christ’s sacrifice on the cross, we are blessed with the desire to share the Good News to others. Thus, Faith = Good Works.
Leviticus, although I have been toiling in this book and has slowed down my pace with my reading, has taught me something amazing. (Unfailingly, God does that.) Firstly, God is Lord. He made it sure that we wont forget it. Thus, I humble myself and accept this assignment from Him. Secondly, God is certain, reflective of His exactness, attention to detail, and providing laws to protect us. Thirdly, God is about grace as referred to the verse above.
God puts Himself within us, assuring us as well that He will not despise us. It is by His works that we become self-assured. It is awesome that He provided us the book of Leviticus, which serves as “traffic signs”, precautions, warnings and reminders. If we fail to heed to His warnings, we degrade the quality of our lives, and miss out on the true beauty and great joy living with God has to offer.
We are to live the best way we can for God wants that for us. And as we live, let us remember our love for Him and our Faith in Christ. Let us remember that through Him, by surrendering and humbling ourselves before the Lord, we live a life, which is already victorious. What we have to do now is tell people of the amazing transformation Christ has brought to our lives. “For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.” Matthew 12:34b (ESV) From the love of Christ, His ever-present grace, we become able to serve and work for Him so that others may enjoy the life of living with our victorious God. He is with us, and He will not despise us.
One of my pet peeves used to be was whenever someone asked me what my tattoos mean. To be honest, I just like how they look on my skin. I guess the fact that I couldn’t wax philosophical about their deeper significance was what irritated me most. But people are people and people will always ask so I just learned to shrug and play along and manage to give convincing answers.
I recently read “How To Be Good” by Nick Hornby. I’ve only read two other of his books to know that he is a master at creating characters, so fully and intricately, that they jump out at you from the pages of your book.
“How To Be Good” is no different. He tells of the story of a married couple who finds themselves on the brink of a divorce, Katie and David.
This Holy Week…
Let us not focus on our guilt.
Let us focus on salvation.
Let us not focus on the suffering.
But focus on the resurrection.
Let us not focus on the many things that could have spared our Lord from His death.
But let us focus on the fact that death could not hold our Lord down.
Let us not focus on being defeated.
For Christ resurrected victoriously.
Let us not focus on anything that will distract us from honoring and praising the amazing sacrifice of our Lord, Jesus Christ.
Let us declare our love for our God who has given us the Son and the Spirit to us.
Let us proclaim His name, who has set us free from death, and has blessed us with His grace.
We are victorious through Him, with Him, and in Him.
Today, we begin to commemorate the beginning of the last act of all our lives in death. When this week is done, we will remember what Christ did for us. He battled the enemy and conquered death, with grace and love. He did what was impossible. He resurrected from the dead, embarrassing the enemy’s hold on man’s mortality. He atoned for our sins, becoming the eternal sacrifice in exchange for life everlasting. For through Christ, Man doesn’t end with darkness and death.No More. Through Christ, we begin a new life free of the worries of sin and allowing us to focus on our relationship with Him.
Jesus has saved us all. Now we can live a life not looking left and right, worrying on how our lives will end up. Now, we can live in confidence that we will be with the Father in paradise. We live a life of victory, a life free of sin and death. “But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8 (NIV)
“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. 17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. 18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son. 19 This is the verdict: Light has come into the world, but people loved darkness instead of light because their deeds were evil. 20 Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed. 21 But whoever lives by the truth comes into the light, so that it may be seen plainly that what they have done has been done in the sight of God.” John 3:16-21 (NIV)
“This is to be a lasting ordinance for you: On the tenth day of the seventh month you must deny yourselvesand not do any work—whether native-born or an alien living among you— because on this day atonement will be made for you, to cleanse you. Then, before the Lord, you will be clean from all your sins.”
Leviticus 16:29-30 (NIV)
Well the title is quite misleading but do read a little it further. It will all make sense after.
Year after year, Jewish tradition celebrates the Day of Atonement. This is the time when God forgives all of the sins of all the Jews. However, one has to respect that day of tradition for the reward to kick in.
This reminded me of a yearly subscription to a magazine. Every year an account manager assigned to a certain client, will call and remind the subscriber that it is that time of the year to renew that subscription. Since most of us here are of the faith, we will subscribe to that offer. We will observe that tradition. It is the day where we are free of our sins. We can start again with a clean slate. Hopefully, the next Day of Atonement, our canvasses won’t be as dirty as it were last year.
If you think that this is an amazing offer by God to His believers, there’s more!
Believe it or not, God topped that offer. He upped the reward and the subscription period of atonement. Now, you’re interested?
From an every year observance of the Day of Atonement to a one-time only acceptance!
To avail of this amazing benefit from God, we have to do one thing. Only one thing! We declare Jesus Christ as our personal Lord and Savior.
“If you confess (come clean) with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.” Romans 10:9 (NLT)
Upon accepting Christ as our Lord, our Father, our Savior, who loves us with no limits, we have received salvation. And we can expect a new life with a secure end. We are now part of His kingdom, and we will act accordingly as a son of our Lord would.
“Once you were dead because of your disobedience and your many sins. You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world, obeying the devil—the commander of the powers in the unseen world.He is the spirit at work in the hearts of those who refuse to obey God. All of us used to live that way, following the passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature. By our very nature we were subject to God’s anger, just like everyone else.
But God is so rich in mercy, and he loved us so much, that even though we were dead because of our sins, he gave us life when he raised Christ from the dead. (It is only by God’s grace that you have been saved!) For, he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus. So God can point to us in all future ages as examples of the incredible wealth of his grace and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us who are united with Christ Jesus.
God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God. Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it. For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.”
Ephesians 2:1-9 (NLT)
