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Leviticus – a preamble to diving in
May 12th 2024
So, we wrapped up Exodus last week and are readying ourselves to sojourn through Leviticus – which I would do without any hesitation except for a recent powerful experience that changes in me a perspective I think is important to the faith.
I will do my best to articulate the message which I wrote while on our month-long break.
I share it because I think it should become part of our Yeshuan Library which is presently being created by all of us.
Like many of you I too have spent decades in the Record trying to understand its overall message to myself as a human being and I have naturally assigned much of its content to my quest for how to live and walk in faith today.
It’s tricky because in the face of fulfillment, some principles still seem to directly apply from the text, some don’t and some apply at certain phases of our maturity then need to apparently fade so that they can be replaced by other perspectives that integrate with them.
Without realizing it this has led to some misunderstanding on my part and therefore needs some clarification so as to maintain clear communications and to leave choices open for others.
Of course, if fulfillment is incorrect then everything I am about to correct in my world-view should be discarded and what I learned last month is wrong.
You let the Spirit decide and walk as you see fit.
Part of the difficulty of rightly addressing what I am about to talk about is the fact that people are individual moving targets when it comes to principles of the faith, and how they choose to apply things to themselves does become somewhat relative.
What I mean by this is babes in Christ, like newcomers to mathematics, need to learn the basic principles presented in scripture in order to rightly build upon their knowledge before moving along, as the writer of Hebrews so clearly indicates.
Lacking the fundamentals in either the faith or in mathematics makes for misunderstandings down the line as each needs to grow to higher concepts once concepts more fundamental are obtained.
The personal error I was confronted with was in the fact that after maturing in the faith I neglected to “let go” of some of the essentials that were once necessary to stand upon and grow in so as to build upon better views and practices.
We have to remember that most believers in the day of Christ were new in the faith – that the Apostles were only walking with Yeshua for three years before entering into full time individual ministry and that the most mature of the apostolic writers was actually Paul, who went from being a Jew of Jews to being discipled by the Spirit of Christ (or even Christ Himself) for many years before entering into full-on apostolic activity which included some of the most articulate writings in scripture.
It is therefore Paul who offers the most insight about maturing in the faith and what comes along with it.
Where I was failing in my understanding came about through the following situations.
First, as you know I came from a place where my flesh was uncontrolled and vile – like some of you – and I sought solutions to this natural state for decades.
When I discovered the solution (or when it discovered me in a place when I was ready to hear) I ultimately came to understand the value of scripture in learning right principles by the Spirit and dove in headlong.
Because the power of the scripture in the hands of the Spirit, were so highly effective in rewriting my wiring and renewing my mind, I leaned hard into the edicts given, again, to that early body of believers who were all relative babes in the faith.
This included many, many, excellent principles like,
“all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, are of this world and not of the Father.”
Temptations that were presented to Eve and to the Lord in the wilderness in representational types.
Hand in hand with that principle are other notions of our “dying daily with Christ,” of “rising to new Life (by and through His literal resurrection), and learning to have an “eternal view’ while inhabiting these fleshly bodies of flesh.
One major contextual point I overlooked is the fact that at the time of these writings, there was no reason for people to marry, if they could withstand temptation – the time was short.
There was a dire constant need for them to focus on the world to come, brought in by Christ’s return, and to have the mindset about life that was almost monk-like, causing hundreds of thousands of people to actually mimic their ascetic lifestyles.
A natural result of embracing these principles in my life was for me to increasingly develop a longing to be with Christ and therefore a desire to exit this world which would accomplish my longing.
What I am speaking to here is the ubiquitous mindset that can, has and will overcome many believers who, earnest in the faith, develop “a mindset of wanting to exit this world and join the heavenly kingdom.”
How many times have we heard people say things like,
“I just want to go and be with Jesus.”
Or
“I can’t wait for His return to just wipe this place out.”
This is not a surprising attitude in the least for a number of very valid reasons.
First, because we strive to not operate in the flesh as we mature, but instead operate by our inner man or woman, it is natural, belonging to a heavenly Jerusalem above wherein God and Christ dwell, to yearn to be there.
This tendency is fortified by the fact that the more we lean into the inner person of the spirit, the less the things of this world entice or entertain us.
Additionally, when we tap into the written text, given to them and speaking specifically to that day and age and their specific situation, we naturally absorb their mindset forgetting some mitigating factors that fulfillment ought to balance out for those willing.
For instance, they were literally waiting, looking for and expecting the Lord and Savior to come back to them/then and rescue them from a very tenuous situation.
This is the context of all of the Apostolic record.
That day and that age was one of brutality and simply one quite different from the day and age in which we live – in both positive and negative ways.
Specifically, the Bride was under constant attack having only a space of time of peace before being tested, hunted, imprisoned and put to death.
Add in that the Apostles themselves, who were writing, were especially tried and this caused Paul to write:
1st Corinthians 4:9 For I think that God hath set forth us the apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle unto the world, and to angels, and to men.
10 We are fools for Christ’s sake, but ye are wise in Christ; we are weak, but ye are strong; ye are honorable, but we are despised.
11 Even unto this present hour we both hunger, and thirst, and are naked, and are buffeted, and have no certain dwelling place;
12 And labor, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it:
13 Being defamed, we intreat: we are made as the filth of the world, and are the offscouring of all things unto this day.
Reading these things and absorbing this mindset that dictated their attitudes about life and living and then assigning them to our mindsets today can lead to problems if we are not observant of context – and this is what I came to see of late and which we will talk about in more depth.
I am sure that their circumstances shaped and colored much of what the apostles wrote, and their influence upon us helps lead our minds to assume a similar world-view. That is good and bad in some cases.
In other words, when we read passages today like Galatians 1:4, where Paul writes, speaking of Yeshua,
“Who gave himself for our sins, that he might deliver us from this present evil world, according to the will of God and our Father.”
Most people, earnestly wanting to conform ourselves to the text, assume the mindset that we are living in the very same “not-one-whit-different-world” and bear about attitudes and outlooks that reflect such.
After dedicating my formerly uncontrollable self to the written scripture for decades, my mind rightfully being renewed and my soul empowered – which is the promise of God in His Scripture – but I simultaneously embraced the attitude of wanting to die and be with the Lord as soon as possible.
This attitude was a blessing to me as a babe because it aided me in turning from this world and looking to the next.
But I was so committed to the mindset that I, fearing to let it go, clung to it in almost everything I did and let it render me more and more absent from the reason God gave me my life in the first place – which is to be lived.
In the end, I was steadily waiting to die, longing to die and to be removed from my body so as to fully live by the Spirit in the promised heavenly kingdom above.
Paul says something interesting in Philippians 1 starting at verse 21, when he writes,
21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 22 If it is to be life in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. 23 I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better.
And this was my attitude, for all the reasons I have mentioned.
After decades of not taking family vacations, we had the most blessed opportunity to escape for a month to Hawaii as a family – and not just Hawaii but to a secluded home right on the water that housed all eleven of us at one point without being cramped.
This was a place where you could surf but it also had inner reefs that kept the shore break flat so it was an amazing habitation for a bounty of sea-life others around the Island look high and low to observe.
We were surrounded by palm trees, vistas of the verdant mountains and would go for hours (even days) and not see anyone except giant sea turtles, blowfish and other animal life that called this place their home.
Our family was amazed by the setting, the accommodations, the beauty. We were very very blessed to have been able to experience something like this.
But having spent decades cultivating my mindset about this world and life, especially as it literally helped me submit to becoming a new man who operated by the Spirit, I could not enjoy it – any of it.
What I enjoyed was watching my family enjoy it, and I honestly did enjoy that, but I was so heavenly minded, so desiring to be there to serve in that spirit realm, I was a downer in some respects, which was not an encouragement to those around me and which made them ultimately have a less better time in a Creation that God Himself hand-crafted.
Add in the fact that my body has been breaking down over the past couple years, with hip replacements and complications from diabetes, I had literally resigned myself to fully focusing on my heavenly destination, untouched in the least by this world, and longing for death.
This was justifiable by scripture in my mind, but was not good, loving or sacrificial. It was actually my being self-absorbed.
Here is where I was confronted with the fatal flaw of not allowing a right view of scripture to be balanced by a right view of all God had made me (actually remade me) to be!
I had lost the fact that Christ came to give life and to give life MORE abundantly – especially in the face of biblical fulfillment – and not less.
Interestingly, where Paul does admit, relative to His day, age, calling and purposes, that for him
“to die is gain,” and to say, “My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better,”
I neglected to also see, or at least also emphasize or add in my mind the conditions of his existence in that day, and the context of the statement in full.
Worse-yet I avoided a more mature understanding that plainly suggests that once a person has matured in the faith, especially in this day and age of fulfillment, there is a much, much, much better mindset to embrace than that of being dower and ready to die.
But most importantly to me, there is a biblically based justification for this shift too – which we will get to in a minute.
So, listen again to what Paul writes in Philippians 1 –
21 For to me to live is Christ, and to die is gain. 22 If it is to be life in the flesh, that means fruitful labor for me. Yet which I shall choose I cannot tell. 23 I am hard pressed between the two. My desire is to depart and be with Christ, for that is far better. 24 But to remain in the flesh is more necessary on your account. 25 Convinced of this, I know that I shall remain and continue with you all, for your progress and joy in the faith, 26 so that in me you may have ample cause to glory in Christ Jesus, because of my coming to you again.
I made an error in my thinking and attitude and ignored the fact that,
God is the giver and taker of life –
That to live “is gain” (the longer we live producing fruits of love the more we gain in spiritual growth) and that life is a time to continue to serve others from our renewed “inner man” or woman.
that sacrificial living, which includes bringing joy, encouragement, peace and peacemaking and light into the tired depressed heart of those truly suffering is an opportunity to give some of the most matured forms of love on earth!
I mean what good is our lives as matured believers if they get translated to “a dower attitude that others hear and see in us!”
Why would anyone desire to ever mature if the end it leads to being down, depressed and waiting to be taken?
I came to see that my attitude, that proliferates many of the minds of sold- out Evangelicals, was very short sighted, was in fact contrary to Him and His purposes, that it was selfish and self-absorbed, and was a by-product of-
Failing to see the Apostolic writings in context.
Failing to see the writings in the great light of fulfillment, and
Failing to honor the Living God all the days of my life – as a babe needing to learn the reality of living for this world and as a mature believer learning to then thrive and share the joy I have to selflessly encourage life and life more abundantly with others.
Unfortunately, in the first few days of the most incomprehensible vacation you can imagine I was shown, primarily by my family, that His true Children have a responsibility to live to the fullest in our regenerated lives all as a means to illustrate to the world that walking with God through faith in His Son translates to maturely maintaining an eternal view while choosing to show others that this life is a gift, it is best served living it, and best represented as being full of peace, joy, cheerfulness, hope and taking the time to worship the living God who gave it along the way.
Because this attitude is ubiquitous among the LDS in their culture, I rejected it entirely. I did this because the mentality of it within Mormonism is not founded in the fundamental principles of first developing the inner man by renouncing the ways of the world, which produces pride, arrogance and a very worldly mindset in people who then see financial and material success as indication of God’s approbation.
So please do not get me wrong, there is a time and place in the early lives of believers for them to learn the fact that “all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life is not of the Father but is of this world,” and the need “to die daily,” with Christ is requisite in the development of the inner woman or man, but so is the need to rise up in His new life and to walk by the Spirit in the inner man and not of the flesh surrounding us.
But, especially in the view of fulfillment, once these things are understood, the Evangelical attitude of “dower woe” and “wanting to just exit this world as soon as possible” is also contrary to God’s purposes, and serve to promote attitudes and lives incongruent with the gift of life that God has given us.
Paul says in 2nd Corinthians 5:6
“So we are always of good courage; we know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord, 7 for we walk by faith, not by sight. 8 We are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. 9 So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.”
It’s all a matter of balance and degree. Being spiritually minded and renewed, it’s natural to think by the spiritual kingdom above and what it will be like to be divested of these carnal bodies and equipped with heavenly models directly abiding in Him and His light.
But I made the mistake of putting the cart before the horse and failing to see the importance of the opportunity to actually walk in these failing bodies by His Spirit and to choose to selflessly contribute to the lives of those around me by and through engaging in the things others enjoy with an attitude of peace and joy in the God for our existences.
I sat down with my family and shared my disinterest in everything around me and to share my love for them as the reason I was in those incomprehensibly beautiful surroundings in the first place.
They all rejected this attitude out of hand but it was Delaney who took me to task. And we went at it, kindly, peaceably for at least an hour.
My position was that “she did not understand the scripture;” fully and her position was my interpretation of the scripture, and my application of it in my life, was
Illogical to agape love and the proving ground view I taught; that it was
Not consistent with the purpose and value of life and the gift that it is,
That it did not rightly represent fulfillment, that
It would not be interpreted as goodness in the minds of younger family members toward the faith
And that it was all-together out of touch with the Great News as she understood it!
To her, if God has reconciled all things to Himself through His Son, and if this life is a proving ground, and if love if defined as selfless, sacrificial and insufferable, then once a person has understood the principles of walking by the Spirit and has matured therein, then in the age of fulfillment, it is God honoring to walk in this mindset as an example to others of being His child and to show others what joy He brings – which is a fruit of the Spirit – not what dowerness He brings.
I realized that where I had continued dying daily to my former flesh I was ignoring the fact that my flesh was no longer reigning, that I had learned and matured according to the inner man, and then, while housed in my flesh that had risen to new life, it was now appropriate to live entirely in and through this fortified identity given me.
I was losing joy, losing strength and physical vitality, which enticed me to focus on passages that speak of “this present evil world” and “all that is in it not being of the Father but of this world,” while myopically avoiding other scriptural directives and their context.
So, I went to scripture, moved by the Spirit to try and see the other passages written (even then) about the life of people regenerated in the Spirit and came upon
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Romans 12:18 where we read
“If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men.”
Would this not be the call on the lives of those who, have learned to eat from the meat of the word, to bear about in themselves in peacemaking?
Or as the Writer of Hebrews wrote,
Heb 5:12 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need some one to teach you again the first principles of God’s word. You need milk, not solid food;
13 for every one who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a child.
14 But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their faculties trained by practice to distinguish good from evil.
And then adds
1 Therefore let us leave the elementary doctrine of Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again a foundation of repentance from dead works and of faith toward God, 2 with instruction about ablutions, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment. 3 And this we will do if God permits.
The permission given here seems to infer that while remaining in these bodies, with eyes and hearts on Him, that we ought to move on living fulfilled complete lives, sharing joy, light and love with the younger, not death despair and indifference to what God has done.
Truly, Paul’s words in Romans 8:18 continued to ring true in my soul, where he admitted
Romans 8:18 For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.
But this view must be balanced with other passages like
1st Corinthians 3:21-22 where he wrote,
“So let no one boast of men. For all things are yours, whether Paul, or Apollos, or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come; all are yours.
Yes, the rub is a rub between body and spirit but to walk in faith is to accept His finished victorious work, accepting that scripture describes us as “former souls” and “present souls,” suggests that as long as the Lord permits, we seek to endure from a place of faith hope and love and see ourselves as doing His will as long as He leaves us living in these proving grounds.
Here is where Paul’s words to the church at Roman, chapter 12, take root, saying,
Romans 12:1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that ye present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.
I was losing my reasonable service of living sacrificially by the renewed man given to me, seeing physical surrender and wishing death as meritorious or godly when it fact, it was actually self-centered “mental and emotional” suicide.
Speaking again to their plight in that day, where members of the Bride had it, relative to persecution of the faith, so much worse that we do today, Paul says,
2nd Corinthians 5:8-9 We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord. Wherefore we labor, that, whether present or absent, we may be accepted of him.
He adds to Titus 2:12, saying even in that day of torment, suffering and trial,
“Teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly, in this present world,”
Referring to that world under the Law that was coming to an end.
Now in the victorious age, a new world of His victory and where things, by comparison, are getting better in terms of physical improvements even though this present world is anything but right.
How could this world be perfect and right it be if it continues to be a proving ground for human beings?
It is my opinion, having repented and seen the error of my ways that fundamental to living the faith His children are called, if afforded the opportunity, to learn the basics or essentials, the Milk, until each babe has come to understand them, but to then, after feasting and comprehending the Meat, to continue in the Fruit of the Spirit and to learn to operate thereby while mortal, not according to the flesh nor according to the ways of the world, but while in these decaying bodies we share spiritual hope, gratitude, light, and agape love for all that God has done and continues to do.
I missed this distinction – completely – focusing on the Man of Sorrows acquainted with grief and seeing His suffering as a 1 to 1 translation of ours when in reality, and in the face of His victory, we ought to see and face life, with more abundance, not less.
Some of you do this already. I’ve watched having a light touch on the things of this world but enjoying life as His child.
You humble me.
This perspective lends greatly to the open liberty found in the Great News and helps us lift up hands that hang low in poverty and pain through spiritual empowerment and encouragement rather than to just cursing the darkness while longing for our heavenly destination.
No, I suggest that possessors of the Great News perspective become shining lights of joy, peace love and gratitude for the earth and the life God has given them.
I do see the importance of remembering what Yeshua warned believers of in His parable of the sower, that the riches and cares of the world can stunt growth of the seeds roots rendering an abundance of fruit impossible.
Yet, note, in the same parable, after the seed is cast on good soil, and takes deep root, and is then able, having matured, to then produce fruit upward.
This teaching tacitly suggests that once a believer has matured that their attitude and appreciation for all of God’s goodness, bounty, creation and blessings should be manifestly shared with all like light from the sun, warming and illuminating whatever and whomever is around.
I had reached maturity, roots deep but considered it the end of my earthly journey when in fact, perhaps it is only beginning, and my best opportunities to bless those who have not yet arrived remain.
I now see the time here as a God-given opportunity to actually use what I’ve learned and to produce more – both inwardly in my own continued maturation and in the time I have left, to serve others more selflessly, sacrificially, and yes, even more, “insufferably.”
The writer of Hebrews describes this time of trials, with less interest in the things of this world, declining health and waning abilities this way, saying,
Hebrews12:11 “Now no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous: nevertheless afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruit of righteousness unto them which are exercised thereby.”
I went to bed to the roaring sounds of the waves relentlessly pounding and deconstructing everything material in their wake.
I recalled how I once viewed beauty in decay, and remembered how the sand that is soft beneath our feet was probably once solid rock, uncomfortable but strong.
At the same time I knew that those same waves were bringing oxygen, motion and life to an entire underwater environment that was in the process of bring forth and bearing more and more life into the world, and that this cycle of life, from the first breath to the last – and whatever comes in between – is a God-authored gift, and that it is incumbent upon any son or daughter to express every moment of it with joys and appreciation rather than a desire or live longing to move on.
I woke up listening to the very same body of water I grew accustomed to as a boy, teen and man, and realized that in my constant search for truth, and in my resistance to all things culturally LDS, I had become ungrateful, dead or at least indifferent to many of the wonderful things I have been blessed with, have encountered, and that have even served to challenge my resolve to walk through life without idolatry.
I got out of bed a new man – once again – no longer moaning and groaning over my meager physical decline but renewed by the process the Living God puts His children in and through this gift called life.
I remain indifferent to the things of this world for the most part – I cannot help this as my focus is always upon Him and the things of His Kingdom.
But I felt it important, as someone helping to introduce the Great News to the world, to address a better way to see living this life and it does not include yearning for death.
I now yearn to live as Long as He will have me here, grateful for every loss and every gain, every pleasure and every pain, for every experience and every moment in reverent silence before Him, ready, willing and spiritually able to serve His Kingdom and those who have become part of it here and now.
Interestingly, the term grateful or gratitude is never found or used in the King James.
But the familiar word, translated grace, is what is translated to thanks, joy, and pleasure – which are all wrapped up in humility, simplicity and selflessness.
The opposite of charis (translated to grace and the like) is entitlement, and I came to see that all of my training in the scripture errantly led me to a sense of entitlement to look down on the life God has given us, and to resist His efforts to use the time He has given me to grow and serve in the spirit of appreciation, mercy, joy peace and love (which are fruits of the Spirit) relative to all things, all the time.
Upon this view and understanding I now stand, forever refusing to adore the things of the flesh or the things of this world, especially by comparison to Him, but honoring this life given and seeing it as more time for me to grow and to serve Him and others around me.
Thank you for allowing me the time to come to rebalance all of this in my mind and heart – and now, life.
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