“You must present as the LORD’s portion the best and holiest part of everything given to you.”
Numbers 18:29 (NIV)
When God calls Himself Holy something else is meant than when God calls something on earth holy. God is Holy, Holy, Holy – absolutely different from every created being and thing in a wonderful and terrible way. The worship song in Revelation 15 declares that He alone is holy, and will receive glory and worship from all of us as His righteous acts are revealed. Any record in the bible of a person who saw this Holy God, either in a vision or in reality gives us a sense of how terrible the Holiness of God is to sinful humans.
When God calls an offering holy, He is referring to the truth that it has been set aside for Him, the Holy One. In the instructions contained in this chapter He is ordering that priests and the Levites are to be set aside from everyone else in order to serve Him by ministering between the people and their Holy God. Their entire lives are to be devoted to doing the work required for a Holy God to meet His sinful people on the face of the earth. They are therefore holy servants, and are to get their food and drink from the holy offerings people bring to the LORD. So the Levites collect from the people, and the Levites offer a tenth of all they collect to the priests - now notice that the part they present to the priests is to be the best part of what the Levites received.
There are two principles here for us if we want to consider them -
Do we friend give God the best part of ourselves each day? Or do we give Him what is left over from what we give to others? Do we love Him before we love our spouse, or our children, or our parents?
Just think today of what has been given to each of us individually from God – count our blessings - do we give the best of what He has given to us back to Him?
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