Tues.’s Devo - Sanctification

Read: Leviticus 7:28-9:6; Mark 3:31-4:25; Psalm 37:12-29; Proverbs 10:5
Reading about the sacrifices can get detailed and complicated but it makes it easier to understand if you think of it like this. Aaron, the High Priest, stands for Jesus and his sons stand for true believers who worship and walk with him. The son who gets to offer the sacrifice gets to share in its reward.
In Chapter 8 we read about how Aaron and his sons were consecrated to serve as priests. It is the process of sanctification that we all go through as believers. Sanctification is nothing more than getting cleansed from sin. We get sin on our garments simply by walking through an unregenerate world, so we all need to loose ourselves of the dirt we accumulate.
First, Moses washed them in water which stands for baptism. Then he clothed them with the garments of the priesthood. Our garments are in Ephesians 6. Then Moses anointed their head with oil which to us this stands for renewing our minds in the Word of God. Moses then purified the altar with a sacrifice of blood. Aaron and his sons laid their hands on the head of the bull for the sin offering transferring their sins to the bull. Then the bull was sacrificed for them as a picture of what Jesus did on the cross.
Moses brought a second bull and sacrificed him for the sanctifying of the priests. He took its blood and put it on the tip of Aaron’s right ear, the thumb of his right hand, and the big toe of his right foot. Then he did the same for Aaron’s’ sons. This was to sanctify everything they heard, everything they did and everywhere they walked.
Next, Moses took unleavened bread and put it into the hands of Aaron and his sons to wave it before the Lord. This was to show that God’s Word was being placed in their hands to give out to the people. They were sanctified to teach the truth.
The last thing Moses did was to anoint their garments so that they would be totally holy before the Lord. That is the end result of what we are to become in our time on earth. It is a process that took the priests seven days which for us it means our whole life. At the end of their seven days they would walk out consecrated. On the eighth day they were ready to go and teach the people how to be consecrated to the Lord and be able to hear what He had to say to them.
In Mark, Jesus’ mother and brothers come to meet privately with him. but he is ministering to the people. When Jesus heard they are there he made a point of letting his disciples know that no one is his favorite. He came to love the world equally. Many scholars believe that Joseph must have died and as the first born, they wanted Jesus to come and manage his father’s business. (Food for thought.)
Jesus then went into his most important parable. He said that if they didn’t understand this one, they wouldn’t understand any other parable he would give. It is the famous parable about the seed and the sower. The seed is the Word of God and whether it matures and grows is determined solely by the soil. The soil is the heart of man. If his heart is hungry and teachable, then the seed will thrive and bear fruit. If the heart is hard or full of unforgiveness or bitterness, the seed will die and not produce fruit.
Lord, may our hearts be soft and teachable so that your seed can germinate and bear fruit. May we embrace your sanctification process in our lives today.