Monday, June 23, 2025
Scripture Readings
- Primary Reading: Leviticus 10-11
Key Verse
Leviticus 11:14 — “And the vulture, and the kite after his kind;”
Devotional Thought
The tabernacle had just been dedicated. Fire from heaven had fallen and consumed the first offerings, and the people had shouted and fallen on their faces in awe. Among those who witnessed it were Nadab and Abihu, two of Aaron’s four sons, newly consecrated priests. Then, in the very shadow of that glory, they took their censers, put fire and incense in them, and “offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not.” Fire went out from the LORD and devoured them, and they died before Him. Moses spoke the only comfort he could: the LORD will be sanctified in those who come near Him. And Aaron, their father, held his peace.
It is a hard scene, and it stands near the beginning of Leviticus for a reason. The book is not primarily a rulebook; it is a revelation of who God is and how a holy God may be approached. Moses had warned Israel at Sinai that even the priests must not come up casually, “lest the LORD break forth upon them.” Nadab and Abihu did not worship a foreign god or deny the LORD. They simply drew near on their own terms. And the LORD’s answer was fire. “I will be sanctified in them that come nigh me.”
Then the LORD spoke directly to Aaron: no wine or strong drink when entering the tabernacle, so that the priests might “put difference between holy and unholy, and between unclean and clean,” and teach Israel to do the same. Leviticus 11 works out that same distinction in daily life — clean and unclean animals, what may be eaten and what may not. At first these lists can seem remote from us. But the principle is not remote at all. God’s people are to be a distinct people, marked by holiness, because “I am the LORD your God… ye shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.”
We read this in late June, in the long green season of the year, when the church’s calendar settles into ordinary days. And it is precisely in ordinary days — what we eat, what we touch, how we come to worship, how we treat what God calls holy — that our reverence is either formed or eroded. The warning of Nadab and Abihu and the dietary laws of Leviticus 11 both ask the same question: do we treat God as holy in the small, daily, unremarkable things? Or do we assume that nearness to Him costs nothing?
Reflection
- Where in my own worship or daily habits have I begun to approach God casually, offering Him what He has not asked for, rather than what He has commanded?
- The LORD set Israel apart as holy because He is holy. What would it look like this week for my ordinary choices — what I consume, what I say, how I keep the Lord’s Day — to reflect that I belong to a holy God?
Prayer
Holy LORD, You are the God who brought Your people up out of Egypt to be their God, and You have called us to be holy because You are holy. Teach us to come near You on Your terms, not our own, and to tremble at Your word rather than treat it lightly. Forgive us for the strange fire of our own inventions, and cleanse us by the blood of Your Son, our great High Priest. Give us grace to put difference between holy and unholy in the ordinary hours of this day, and to teach those around us, by our lives, that You alone are to be sanctified and glorified. In the name of Jesus, Amen.