Coming to God

Leviticus 1:3-5: "If the offering is a burnt offering from the herd, he is to offer a male without defect. He must present it at the entrance to the Tent of Meeting so that it will be acceptable to the LORD. He is to lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him. He is to slaughter the young bull before the LORD."

As I was reading through this passage recently, I could not help but think about the significance of the burnt offering. In the Old Testament, a man would take an animal to the Tent of Meeting (a place of worship where the glory of God resided) to be a vicarious sacrifice for his sins. I've probably read through this passage a dozen times; but this time, the details intrigued me.

First, I noticed that the sacrifice had to be an animal without defect. It had to be the best that one had to offer. Of course, one cannot help but see the imagery of Jesus Christ in the offering; just as the animal had no defect, so too Jesus Christ was the perfect, sinless sacrifice for the sins of those who would receive His gift of salvation (I Corinthians 5:7).

Still, I noticed that the one who was to approach God for mercy had to prepare himself for the event. First, he had to be willing to give God his very best. God was not interested in one presenting the undesirable animals from his flock. Secondly, the man had to go to God at the Tent of Meeting; he couldn't just say, "God, come to me and I'll give you what you want." Thirdly, he actually had to make the sacrifice; he had to yield his choicest animal to God in faith that God would provide his grace.

When I think about our salvation through Jesus Christ, I am reminded that we cannot come to the cross with the attitude that says, "OK Jesus, I want your salvation; but you're not getting all of me. I want to get the benefits of grace (like a "get out of hell free card"), but I'm not willing to submit myself to your Lordship. We know from Ephesians 2 that God's grace is totally a work of God through the atoning sacrifice and subsequent resurrection of Jesus Christ. Still, the individual today must be willing to prepare himself. This decision involves a crisis point of sacrifice, in which the individual makes the choice to come to God (repentence) and sacrifices himself to God (submission).