“If his offering is a sacrifice of peace offering, if he offers an animal from the herd, male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before the Lord.”
-Leviticus 3:1
This is another theme that we see all throughout Leviticus when it comes to offerings that were presented before God, they must be without blemish. So basically, if you’re an Israelite, you wouldn’t take or couldn’t take the animal who is sick or has all of these problems and think, “Okay, I’ll sacrifice that, that way I’ll kinda save the best for myself and I’ll offer the worst to God.” No, you would have to give an offering that’s without blemish, that it’s perfect. And there’s really … Well, there’s multiple purposes going on here, but at least two of those purposes, think about it with me, one, God was teaching his people to offer him their best, not their leftovers.
Jesus is without blemish and uniquely qualified to save sinners. In response to this, we must live our lives for His renown.
This Verse Encourages Us to Give God Our Best
This is where … Oh, I would encourage you and even in my own life I think, “Am I giving God my best?” There’s a reason why tithes, when it comes to money were offered first, like off the top, first fruit offerings off the top, so that we are from the very beginning saying, “God, I give my first and my best to you, not my leftovers.” I think about my time with the Lord. I wanna give him my best time during the day, not my worst time during the day when I’m most prone to distraction or most tired, least energetic, I wanna give him my best time. So to think, as written in Leviticus 3:1, okay in our lives we wanna make sure that God is receiving our best, in all kinds of way, not like leftovers.
Then, another one of the purposes in this offering being without blemish is because in order to be a sacrifice, to cover over sin, that it needed to be perfect. And that picture is foreshadowing the need for a perfect sacrifice in Jesus. Think about it. The only way Jesus could offer his life as a sacrifice for our sins is if he was not a sinner. If he was a sinner like us, then he would have had sin to pay for and he wouldn’t have been paying the price for us. What makes Jesus uniquely able to be a sacrifice for our sins is that he is without blemish. There is no sin in him, unlike anyone else in the history of the world, he never once sinned against God and as a result he is uniquely able to be the sacrifice for sinners.
Leviticus 3:1 Praises God’s Purity
So we pray. First and foremost, Lord Jesus we praise you for your sinlessness. God, we praise you for your purity, your holiness, you are indeed without blemish. We are all, every one of us with blemish. We have all sinned against you, oh God. And Jesus, there is no one like you without sin before God, and so we praise you for your sinless perfection and then for your willingness to be a sacrifice, the sacrifice for our sins, to substitute yourself in the place of sinners for us. All glory be to your name Jesus, the sacrifice without blemish.
And then, based on your love and your grace and your mercy and your holiness, oh God, we pray then you would help us to offer you our best. God we pray that we will never, ever be content with giving you leftovers or a little here or there. God help us to lay our lives all we are, including our best on the altar before you. Please be honored in the way we use our money, the way we use our time, the way we use the gifts you’ve given to us. Oh God, we want to honor you and glorify you with our best, so help us in a First Corinthians 10:31 kind of way. Whatever we do, to do it all for your glory, we pray in Jesus name. 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.
