“Then Aaron’s sons are to burn it on the altar on top of the burnt offering that is on the burning wood, as an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the LORD.”
~ Leviticus 3:5
Hi James and Ellen,
Are you doing anything to have fellowship with God? What would fellowship with God look like to you? Fellowshipping with another kid means that you are enjoying the special friendship, camaraderie, companionship, comradeship and partnership that you have with him or her. Fellowshipping with another kid means that you are enjoying the wholesome, peaceful relationship that you have with him or her. God really does expect to have with you a fellowship driven relationship. God really does expect you to know Him as your friend, companion, comrade and partner. Do you have friends? If you have friends, what kind of relationship do you have with your friends? What to you would make another kid a really good friend? Do you want to have good friends – kids who take the time to listen to you? Are you a friend to other kids – kids who are looking for another kid to listen to them? Your grandmaa and grandpaa are going to be a mentor couple again this coming summer during OC International’s annual six week internship for new missionary candidates. What do you think that it means to be a mentor? A mentor is a combination coach, teacher, guide, counselor and advisor. A mentor needs to be a good listener. A mentor is a guy or gal who is able to intuitively find a way to underpin friendship, camaraderie, companionship, comradeship and partnership with whom he or she is mentoring. Your grandpaa over the past six years and at the time of this editing was a mentor for two area high school students. Your grandpaa thinks that your grandmaa is a much better mentor than what he is. Your grandmaa with her warm, beautiful smile and a God hardwired gift of encouragement is able to make whoever she meets immediately at ease and willing to open up about whatever.
God somewhere around 3450 years ago wanted His specially chosen guys and gals – the Israelite people group’s guys and gals, to do something special that would show to Him their genuine thanks and appreciation for the supportive, caring relationship that He had with them. God’s instructions to His specially chosen guys and gals on how He expected them to have fellowship with Him are found in Leviticus 3. If you were Israelite people group kids who were living around 3450 years ago, you would have seen your dad – if your dad wanted to show God that he wanted to be in fellowship with Him, making animal sacrifices on an altar to Him. One of the offerings that your dad would have made to God was referred to as a fellowship offering. This fellowship offering was first known as the shalom offering – or the wholesome or peace offering. The shalom offering – or the wholesome or peace offering, was always made during each of the three special, annual Israelite people group’s festival occasions to symbolize the peace that God had with them as His specially chosen guys and gals and for the special inner peace that they felt after they had made this special offering to God. God asked His specially chosen guys and gals to sacrifice an animal as a peace offering to Him. God wanted His specially chosen guys and gals to choose animals from their herds – such as a young heifer or young bull, or from their flocks – such as a young lamb or goat. Every time that a young heifer, young bull, young lamb or goat was presented to God as a peace offering – which was the fellowship offering, the guy who offered his animal as a peace offering to God was to lay his hands on the head of the animal as the animal was being killed by a priest in front of the Tent of Meeting. During the three special, annual Israelite people group’s festival events, thousands of Israelite people group’s guys and gals would take animals to where the Tent of Meeting was located – to have them killed by a priest as a peace offering to God. The animal’s blood would be sprinkled by one of Aaron’s sons against the side of the altar – which was located in front of the Tent of Meeting. All the fat that was inside the animal – including the fat around the animal’s liver and kidneys, was to be burned on the altar to God. Each guy who took one of his animals as a peace offering to God to where the Tent of Meeting was located was always given some of the animal’s meat to eat. The priests also were able to eat some of the meat of the animal that a guy had taken to the Tent of Meeting to be killed as a peace offering to God.
Verse 5 says what it meant to God when a guy offered an animal offering to Him as a peace offering, “Then Aaron’s sons are to burn it on the altar on top of the burnt offering that is on the burning wood, as an offering made by fire, an aroma pleasing to the LORD.” Do you want to please God? When God the Son came to plant Earth as an incarnate guy, God the Son became a fellowship or peace offering for your grandmaa and grandpaa and for your Uncle Chris and Aunt Lynn and for your dad and ma and for you – if you make a decision of faith to believe once and for all in what God the Son did on a cross for you where He suffered and died for your sins. God once and for all took away the need to make animal sacrifices to Him when He as God the Son died on a cross as a sacrifice for the sins of all of His specially elected guys, gals and kids. To have a fellowship relationship with God the Father today, you must make a decision of faith believing as an absolute what God the Son did for you on a cross. When that decision of faith is made, you will find that God the Son has become to you a close friend – that you have with Him camaraderie, comradeship, companionship and a wholesome, peaceful partnership. God now expects His specially elected guys, gals and kids to give their lives as living sacrifices to Him. As you offer your lives to God as living sacrifices, God the Spirit will teach, guide, counsel, coach and mentor you on how your lives can serve Him.
Leviticus 3 (348)