Leviticus Bible Study List

Introduction

Let's delve into Leviticus Chapter 3, which speaks of the Peace Offering. What exactly is a Peace Offering? We often assume that merely chanting peace will bring about peace, but in reality, this peace is intricately linked to interpersonal relationships. Tensions between nations lead to a lack of peace; strained relationships between people also result in a lack of peace; and a strained relationship between people and God similarly leads to a lack of peace. Peace is fundamentally a matter of relationships. Today, I will share more insights on the topic of interpersonal relationships.

Peace and Interpersonal Relationships

For several months, I have been preparing to study Leviticus, and I've always felt that it is connected to healing and deliverance. We often feel that healing and deliverance have little to do with Leviticus, and even after being Christians for a long time and reading it, we still don't see much relevance to ourselves. Today, let's try to glean some connection from between the lines. Let's first read this description of the Peace Offering from Leviticus Chapter 3:

‘When someone offers an offering of well-being to the Lord, whether from the herd, male or female, he shall offer it without blemish before the Lord. He shall lay his hand on the head of the offering and slaughter it at the entrance of the tent of meeting; and Aaron’s sons, the priests, shall sprinkle the blood against all sides of the altar. Then from the offering of well-being he shall present an offering by fire to the Lord: the fat that covers the entrails and all the fat that is on the entrails, and the two kidneys with the fat that is on them, which is on the loins, and the lobe on the liver, which he shall remove with the kidneys. Aaron’s sons shall turn these into smoke on the altar over the burnt offering that is upon the wood that is on the fire, as an offering by fire of a pleasing aroma to the Lord.’ (Leviticus 3:1-5)

After reading this, I pondered, why are the liver and kidneys mentioned three times in the text? Why is it necessary to use the entrails and fat for the Peace Offering? I once read The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine, which states that the liver governs the sinews, and the kidneys govern the bones. Any problems with the sinews are related to the liver, and any problems with the bones are related to the kidneys. Moreover, anger injures the liver, and fear injures the kidneys.

If you are prone to fear, it will injure your kidneys; if you are prone to anger, it will injure your liver. Why is this called a Peace Offering? The nourishment of the liver and kidneys relies entirely on the surrounding fat, which serves as a lubricant. Don't underestimate The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine; it is actually a wealth of knowledge. I started learning acupuncture in the third grade and later read some books on traditional Chinese medicine. In fact, The Yellow Emperor's Classic of Internal Medicine is the bible of traditional Chinese medicine.

I put all these things together. Do some of our brothers and sisters have bone problems? For example, a lump growing on a bone, a bone spur, or stiff tendons... Like lumbar problems, they are closely related to tendons and bones. Conditions like ankylosing spondylitis cause pain deep within the bone marrow, and these are closely related to interpersonal relationships. For example, if a person's liver is not good, they are prone to intense emotions, which can easily damage the liver and interpersonal relationships. Fear injures the kidneys. If a person is fearful, their kidneys will not be in good condition, and their relationships with others will suffer even more.

Consider Cao Cao in the ancient Chinese story Romance of the Three Kingdoms. He was a person easily driven by fear. He constantly feared that someone would harm him. He famously said, I would rather betray the world than let the world betray me. If he suspected you, he would eliminate you.

Did those he suspected really want to harm him? They may not have even thought of it, but as long as Cao Cao suspected you, he would get rid of you. When there is suspicion in a person's heart, good interpersonal relationships are impossible, and management and actions are driven by fear. Although Cao Cao was quite intelligent, those around him felt like they were serving a tiger. In fact, Cao Cao's life was not easy.

Why do people lay their hands on the head of the offering? This offering should actually be ourselves. We should become the offering and pay the price for our own sins. The emotions governed by our liver and kidneys are closely related to our internal organs. But the most critical thing is actually the thoughts in our minds.

Because the thoughts in our minds are closely related to our internal organs, and there is a close relationship between our internal organs and our emotions. Originally, we offended God, and our relationship with God and others deteriorated, but we attribute our sins to the sacrificial offering. We offer a Peace Offering, and the offering takes the place of our sins.

If we carefully observe the offering, did the thoughts in our heads change after the offering? If there is no change and the same logical system remains in the head, then things become problematic! What problem are we trying to solve today? The Old Testament is merely a shadow of the New Testament. We cannot follow the Old Testament way of killing ourselves and taking out our liver to burn. If we do that, our lives would come to an end.

In the New Testament, we truly need to hand over our inner emotions, anger, fear, hurt, and interpersonal relationship problems to God. If we don't hand them over to God and bear them ourselves, many problems will arise.

Changing Ourselves is the Solution

The path a person walks in life is the result of their own choices. As for whether the devil deceived you, that is another matter. Even if the devil deceived you, you deserve it! Do we need to rethink things today? For example, those among us with ankylosing spondylitis have a strong sense of anger and fear inside. You fear the future and interpersonal relationships, and then problems arise with your bones and tendons.

Let's all reflect on where we went wrong. The solution to all problems is to change ourselves. If you think that the environment must develop according to your wishes, that will not happen, even if you are in a coffin. The only thing we can do is change ourselves.

People living in modern cities are sometimes very sensitive to noise. Even if you complain about others making noise, it may not solve the problem. One person was afraid of noise from a young age. When he slept, his windows and curtains were always tightly closed, and no one could make noise. After being carefully protected like this from childhood, he finally lived to be forty years old. He lived on the seventh floor. One day, while he was sleeping in his room, a firecracker from downstairs suddenly jumped to his window and made a loud noise. As a result, he developed a mental illness and stayed in a mental hospital for several months. If people could change themselves, they would not develop mental illnesses.

My logic is simple: mold ourselves like loaches in a muddy ditch, capable of surviving with a little water. Therefore, there is no suffering that people cannot endure, only blessings that they cannot enjoy. Enjoying a privileged environment from childhood, but ending up in a mental hospital. The relationship between people is closely related to our inner flexibility, freedom, and faith and trust in God.

If you have bad interpersonal relationships, it doesn't matter, but ankylosing spondylitis, lumbar disc herniation, rheumatoid arthritis, etc., will come your way. Some time ago, we ministered to a person who had more than a hundred bone spurs on his body. Why did he grow so many bone spurs? Because he himself was a bone spur.

So the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and he slept; then he took one of his ribs and closed up the flesh at that place. And the Lord God fashioned into a woman the rib which He had taken from the man, and brought her to him. The man said, “This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.” (Genesis 2:21-23)

As a result, Eve did not become bone of Adam's bones and flesh of his flesh, but became a bone spur in his bones and a flesh thorn in his flesh. With more tolerance and less fault-finding between husband and wife and between boyfriends and girlfriends, the relationship will be harmonious. Don't start feeling angry and fearful inside just because people don't do what you ask, and don't have so many fears.

In boyfriend-girlfriend relationships, they are all afraid of being dumped, and then create a lot of murky things. In fact, the strangest relationship in the world is the marital relationship. The relationship with one's own children cannot be severed. However, the relationship of bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh can be very difficult, becoming bone spur of my bones and flesh thorn of my flesh.

When the Apostle Paul described the marital relationship, he said: Marriage is not a sin, but if you want to get married, you will have more pain in the flesh! I think those who have experienced it know how difficult it is! Marriage is one of the most intimate relationships between people. This most intimate relationship connects the things in your bone marrow and thoughts, as well as all your emotions, within the close relationship.

Some people cannot enter into intimate relationships. Once they enter, they will grow bone spurs and flesh thorns. What is our relationship with God like? Some people dare not have a very close relationship with God. Because after having a close relationship, they start making demands on God, and God has to do according to their demands. You have to treat me this way, you have to treat me that way. If God doesn't treat them that way, they get angry.

There were some people who prayed to God for a car, a house, a girlfriend, or a boyfriend, but God did not give it to them according to their will, and they got angry. God, if you don't give it to me, I'm going to throw a tantrum. In fact, God doesn't care if you throw a tantrum. After you're done throwing your tantrum, your bones hurt, your tendons hurt, and you can slowly endure it! Isn't suffering all your own problem?

If you are so entangled with God, how can you live well? Can you be more generous, more magnanimous? Can people be more resilient in their minds? The Old Testament of the Bible is actually a shadow of the New Testament. What is the shadow? It is to completely dedicate the emotions dominated by our liver and kidneys and the fat inside our internal organs to God. Then how can interpersonal relationships not be good? When people have good relationships, won't they have peace? The Peace Offering is about the relationship between people and God and the relationship between people and people.

Everyone must know that what you want to offer to God must be without blemish. Why offer without blemish? Because there are many selfish people. When you listen to people speak, you can hear what they are saying between the lines. If you are still seeking your own peace today, I think you can forget it, because you still have a selfish motive. Although I often tell you that believing in the Lord will make your life better, if you do it this way, it is still a selfish motive, just living for yourself!

The result of serving God is that we ourselves receive benefits, because our benefits are not apart from God. The question is, what is our motive? We must know for sure that our breath and existence all depend on God, so we should completely trust God and completely commit ourselves to God. People just like to live for themselves and like to be selfish, which is really a tragedy!

Your Choice Alters Your Destiny

Today, Chinese Mingding Destiny speaks of complete dedication, giving our bodies, minds, emotions, inner organs, and thoughts entirely to God. We know one thing: nothing can influence our lives; nothing can change our destiny except our own choices.

Even if you are like Joseph, sold into slavery in Egypt, your fate remains in God's hands. Even if someone seizes your money or ruins your possessions, it doesn't matter, because your destiny is in God's hands. If we have such faith, we need not worry about anything.

People live and then die, and while living in this world, it's always one ache or another. Haven't you had enough pain? You might think I'm being harsh, but it's the truth. Who can help you? Only you can help yourself, by completely entrusting your thoughts to God, offering up your anger, fear, and selfishness to God, becoming a person of dedication.

I tell you, a person who can dedicate himself is extremely happy. Why am I so happy? Because I am a person of dedication. Sometimes it's tiring and difficult, but I am willing. I know that the moment I worry about my own gains and losses, and become selfish, I will lose my destiny.

My destiny in this world is to offer myself completely as a living sacrifice, to become a vessel for God's blessing to this generation. God, use me greatly! I surrender everything within me completely! If we have this resolve within us today, how could our relationships be bad, how could we lack peace?

Some people, whether believing in the Lord or serving, have selfish motives; that is not destiny. Some of our small pastors have a woman's kindness. If you want to help someone, the best help you can give is to help them get rid of their bad habits. If they can't get rid of their bad habits, you can't lead them to believe in the Lord.

Some people say: I can't leave you; if I leave you, I will be very weak, so I need you, so I can become strong, so I can live well! This is still a selfish motive. To come among us, you must be a sacrificial person, dedicating your life, thoughts, fears, emotions, anger, and relationships entirely to God, so as to become a blessing to others. Can a person who never nitpicks at others have bad relationships?

Dedicate Your Life Completely to God

The tragedy of this world today is that people always blame others. A song's lyrics say it was all the moon's fault. People blame this and that, blaming everyone else, and when they can't blame anyone else, they blame the moon. The moon is hundreds of thousands of miles away from you. Did it provoke you or offend you? It takes a long time for a spaceship to fly to the moon! You really need to think about whether you need to adjust yourself.

Blaming this and that is useless. You have to blame yourself for not being resilient enough, for not having enough wisdom. Blame these things, then cast off all burdens and run forward, striving to let God's word enter our lives, to let God personally control our lives, to let our lives be completely dedicated to God.

Here it speaks of offering a fire offering to the Lord as food. Does our God need to eat liver, kidneys, and inner organs? No, our God does not lack food. God wants to completely consume all the bad habits and anger from within us. Our God is a God who serves us. God dealing with the things inside us is God's food; our doing healing and deliverance is our food.

God wants to release us from the bondage of anger and fear; that is God's food. We must continue to promote healing and deliverance. When we do healing and deliverance, we will surely deal with the emotions within us. Take paper and pen, and write down the emotions and selfish motives that bind us. If you listen to my sermon and only hear that believing in the Lord will make you live well, and not hear about destiny, that's a problem. Actually, living well is a byproduct; obtaining destiny is the most important thing.

We must become people of destiny, improve our relationships, and deal with all our fears and anger, offering them to God, burning them on the altar. The diseases in our tendons and bones will be removed. I recently ministered to a patient with stomach cancer. At the beginning of the ministry, I didn't have much hope for her, but later she began to have destiny.

Not many of the cancer patients I minister to have destiny. This stomach cancer patient removed all the idols from her home. Under the care of a pastor among us, after a long time, the person began to change. I was eagerly waiting for this day, and finally, she had destiny.

I thank my God that God did not misjudge her. She has been following us for so many years. Although sometimes she has anger, competition, jealousy, comparison, and fear inside, she has finally embarked on the path of destiny. When people give their fears and anger to God, the evil spirit behind stomach cancer is trampled underfoot, and people live more and more joyfully.

Originally, she was a bone spur and thorn in her husband's side, but now she has become bone of his bones and flesh of his flesh. After people are transformed by God's word, even if others take advantage of us, we don't care, our God will bring it back. Even if others bully us, we don't need to accumulate those emotions. Accumulating too many negative emotions will lead to cancer.

I will tell you an important concept: your healing and deliverance are closely related to the degree of your dedication. If you have not suffered enough, if you still love this world, if your hope is not in God but in the world, you will suffer greater pain in the future. Even if there are no bone spurs, bone spurs can grow. We must deal with everything inside us, becoming selfless people, becoming the glorious image of God. This is called sacrifice, this is called offering a peace offering. The peace offering too important for us!

If you are a person who withholds tithes, how can you not incur God's wrath? If you are harboring secrets even in your relationship with God, how can you build a good relationship with God? If you withhold tithes, holding in your hand what is devoted to destruction in God's eyes, you yourself become devoted to destruction. Even if demons do not come to mess with you, God will send demons to find you. If you think it's okay, and things are still fine today, you will know the relationship after you live a little longer.

We must change, dedicating our body, mind, and spirit completely, becoming an everlasting ordinance for generations. If today your tendons, bones, joints, etc., have problems, these are related to the thoughts in our brains. Our thoughts directly influence our emotions, and our anger and fear are directly manifested in our bodies. If you have suffered enough, you will know how to call upon the Lord your God.

Today, just listen to my advice: offer yourself as a living sacrifice to God, which is acceptable to Him. Such dedication is our reasonable service. When we dedicate ourselves in this way, how can we not have God's glory? You and I originally have God's glorious image, which is an image of dedication. May we all come out of selfish and narrow-minded thoughts.

May God bless everyone!