God is seriously perfectionist

Every day we're reading or listening to part of the Bible together and sharing thoughts with you. Today it’s Bern Leckie:

What did I like about today’s passage?

Just when I think I’m getting my head around God’s plan here, I’m shocked by the deaths of two of Aaron’s sons. (This is maybe more “reaction” than “like”.) What happened?

I do like that God provided ways for his people to be close to him. I also like that there are priestly people with special responsibilities for the work God specified which would bring people together with him. I’m struck by how clearly the priests are marked as special in this passage, and that when they carry out their role it results in glory, blessing and joy.

I’m noticing that God’s requirement for priests is, essentially, perfection. Even doing something which might have looked holy, by not following the instructions Nadab and Abihu were disqualified. This brought their lives to an end. I can make sense of that in the context of the story and what God is trying to do on a big scale, but it’s still shocking.

This is another good time to remind myself that I’m not qualified to be God’s judge. I’ve also got an abundance of evidence that God loves us. So how do we make sense of this?

What did it show me about Father God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit?

God’s holiness is a big deal. Just as light can’t be put out by darkness, God’s perfection can’t be turned off by imperfection. As we’ve seen God’s purpose in drawing people to have their sin and guilt removed by perfect love, his holiness works for our good. But holy people who represent the closest connection to God can only do this when they obey God.

This is why it was so important for Jesus to be obedient to death, even on a cross. He was the first truly perfect priest and perfect pattern for us to follow.

So what about the imperfect priests Nadab and Abihu? We know God made a point with their deaths, but we don’t know what God did with them next. There is more to life than what we see.

And what about our imperfections? Is God going to burn us up for messing up? That’s the real worry, isn’t it? I can take from this story that God has extremely high standards and will perfect his people, but he gave us a priest in Jesus who is perfectly able to take our mess from us today, even while we await a more perfect state of understanding and being.

What am I going to do differently as a result?

Trust in Jesus to keep burning away my imperfections. Sometimes change feels like death.

Who am I going to share this with?

I’m grateful for life because of Jesus, however. It’s better than I had before I properly started to know, trust and follow him! I’ll look out for ways to share my story about that.