“And the priest shall take from the grain offering its memorial portion, and burn this on the altar, a food offering with a pleasing aroma to the Lord.”
-Leviticus 2:9
This is one of those phrases we see repeated over, and over and over again in Leviticus, pertaining to these offerings. They were pleasing aromas to the Lord.
May our lives be living sacrifices that are pleasing to God.
This Verse Calls Us to put Our Lives at the Altar for God
And I think about language in Romans chapter 12, for example, when Paul writes, “I urge you therefore brothers, by the mercy of God, to offer your bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable, or pleasing, to the Lord.” The picture there in Romans, in the New Testament, based on this picture in the Old Testament is, not put an animal on the altar as a sacrifice, that would be pleasing to God. Instead, put your life on the altar as a sacrifice, that will be pleasing to God. So the whole picture of New Testament Christianity is, everyone of our lives as followers of Christ, laid down before the Lord with one purpose. We want to be pleasing to God. We want our lives to be a pleasing aroma to him, so we pray.
Leviticus 2:9 Encourages Us to be Living Sacrifices for God
God, today may our thoughts be pleasing to you. May those desires be pleasing to you. God, our words, may they be pleasing to you. God,our interactions with other people, and our families, and work, the community around us, my they be pleasing to you. Our decisions God, cause our decisions to be a pleasing aroma to you.
Our actions, the way we live today, the way we love, the way we serve people around us. God, we pray that everything in our lives, would be like a pleasing aroma to you today. We pray that, that would be our posture, day in and day out. God take our lives a living sacrifice, and make them a holy and pleasing to you, we pray. May that be our desire today, may it drive us. We want our lives to be a pleasing aroma to you. In Jesus’ name, we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
