And when you sacrifice a sacrifice of thanksgiving to the LORD, you shall sacrifice it so that you may be accepted. It shall be eaten on the same day; you shall leave none of it until morning: I am the LORD.
“So you shall keep my commandments and do them: I am the LORD. And you shall not profane my holy name, that I may be sanctified among the people of Israel. I am the LORD who sanctifies you, who brought you out of the land of Egypt to be your God: I am the LORD.”
The spirit of the Old Testament sacrifices and offerings was to remember that God repeated told the nation of Israel, “I am the LORD.” That phrase is repeated over and over and over in Leviticus. In the above passage we read the statement four times. Moses is instructing Israel on how to offer an acceptable offering to God. The key was to remember that the purpose of all offerings, whether they were an animal or a grain or something else, was not for one’s own good. It was to worship and recognize and confess that God was the LORD. We often approach worship services in our church to think about what we can get out of it. We tend to pick churches for worship services that appeal to us. That is not, in and of itself, a bad thing. But, it is important to realize that God was not creating a worship experience that the worshippers would enjoy. He designed a worship approach that was fully intended to be a picture of how, through Christ, we can and should approach worship. This is not for us. It is to be in awe of who God is. We make worship so much about us, which, of course, loses the purpose of worshipping God. We tend to worship us in our worship. But, God is sanctifying us because He is the LORD. That is the point of worship.
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