Perfect

The Guilt Offering

14 The LORD said to Moses: 15 "When a person commits a violation and sins unintentionally in regard to any of the LORD's holy things, he is to bring to the LORD as a penalty a ram from the flock, one without defect and of the proper value in silver, according to the sanctuary shekel. [d] It is a guilt offering. 16 He must make restitution for what he has failed to do in regard to the holy things, add a fifth of the value to that and give it all to the priest, who will make atonement for him with the ram as a guilt offering, and he will be forgiven.

17 "If a person sins and does what is forbidden in any of the LORD's commands, even though he does not know it, he is guilty and will be held responsible. 18 He is to bring to the priest as a guilt offering a ram from the flock, one without defect and of the proper value. In this way the priest will make atonement for him for the wrong he has committed unintentionally, and he will be forgiven. 19 It is a guilt offering; he has been guilty of [e] wrongdoing against the LORD."

There is so much here - but I continue to be challenged by two things in this whole section of the word:
1.Even if we sin without knowing it, or unintentionally, we are responsible.
2.The offerings the people had to bring to pay for their sins had to be the best they had - without spot, blemish, disease, etc. If they didn't own such an animal, they had to buy one to give to the Lord. What's the point of these two things?

Well, first, sin is an amazing thing. Even if we sin by accident, or by NOT doing something which we should be doing, God considers it important. It will effect us, and He wants us to remain clean and holy. Get that - God wants us to win. Cool. So we need to watch so very carefully the things we watch, take in, participate in, and the things we do and say. We are to live carefully, the Apostle Paul says.

Ephesians 5:15 Be very careful, then, how you live—not as unwise but as wise, 16making the most of every opportunity, because the days are evil.

Secondly - the sacrifice that the people had to bring to the priest, even for an accidental sin or a sin of omission had to be perfect in every way. And the priest was to check it over carefully. Picture that - you show up at the temple with a sacrifice, hand it to the priest and he checks over every inch of that animal. Notice that at no point does the priest check YOU over. You don't really matter, it's the sacrifice which must measure up.

Same with us under the new covenant: when we come to God and ask Him to forgive our sins, He doesn't look at us. He looks at the sacrifice we bring. And in our case, that sacrifice is Jesus, and Jesus is the perfect sacrifice. Acceptable in all ways.

Thanks Lord!