People might wonder why all the sacrifices in the Old Testament were necessary.  Why all the blood and animal sacrifice?  Pastor Bill paints a picture today that there’s a grander story in it all.  There was a level of brutality, blood, and killing of a Lamb at a later time that would vanquish every person from being guilty of his or her own sin.  All the pictures and types in Leviticus point to the greater sacrifice of Jesus dying for the sins of men.  It was bloody, it was gory, and it was altogether a beautiful depiction of sin conquered.  

There’s a train, and it’s been hijacked so that it’s in a state that’s unable to slow down or stop.  You know where this story is headed.  The train will go off the rails at some point, out of control, causing immense destruction.  Did you realize that your choice to sin has the same effect?  Pastor Bill is teaching today about how when your life gets derailed by sin, God gives you opportunities to get back on track, and for your heart to align with where He wants you to be, so you get to your heavenly destination.

Memory loss.  It’s usually thought of as a negative thing if you can’t remember things from the past.  But as Pastor Bill unfolds the greater story within today’s passage, you start to realize that what you’re hearing about was a symbol and a “type” of something to come at a later time.  Jesus came to remove sin, and He’s not keeping track of all the sins that were done before.  He just wants your heart to follow after Him, forsaking the sin that once held you so tight.  Because of Jesus, your sin is erased.

No social status or impressive appearance makes a difference to God.  You could be the most famous/influential person on social media, but God cares about your heart more than any of that.  Today, Pastor Bill is expressing what matters most to God.  It’s not about how you appear before God with showy clothing, status, or anything else.  He wants to see that your heart is devoted to serving Him, honoring Him, and living for Him.  All the rest is meaningless, and it has no effect on how God perceives you.

Having a healthy fear of something isn’t a bad thing.  You might love the ocean, but you have an awareness of its power and the ferocious nature that it can produce, when weather patterns occur.  Today, Pastor Bill wants you to make sure that you have the proper reverence for God – for His power, for His ferocious nature when sin goes unaddressed.  The God you serve is to be feared, because He hates sin, but He loves when people surrender to Him, and allow Him to intercede and take part in a relationship.

Natural consequences are something you might teach your children while they’re growing up.  If they want to go outside barefoot, then it’s only natural that their feet may come back muddy and potentially scraped or cut.  The example that Pastor Bill gives today has much greater consequences.  People indulge in sinful sexual lifestyles that bring about much more serious results, such as disease, challenges, and difficulties that were brought on in the first place because of sin festering in a person’s life.

Do you believe that God is a God of healing?  Today, Pastor Bill refers to a passage about a woman who was considered unclean, but her faith in Jesus made her whole.  It’s a beautiful picture of how you transition from a sinner who has a disease from within, but once that sin is washed away - through faith in the Son of God, you don’t have to be held back by that sin and that discomforting disease anymore.  You can go forward, having been claimed as pure and new by the One who created you.

I can’t help but hear what Pastor Bill just said, and connect it to the idea of sin.  When we as people choose to live in a sinful lifestyle, it can affect the people around us, like an infectious disease.  Sin has a deadly effect, and the bigger picture that Pastor Bill will touch on today is that sin separates us from God.  In these older times of living, God’s heart was to look out for His people by warning or protecting them from the spread of disease.  His heart is also to prevent you from falling into the epidemic of sin.

How often do you ask God for something, and even plead with Him for answers or for healing?  There are times God doesn’t answer right away, or it feels painfully silent.  But today, Pastor Bill gives an example of physical healing and how one out of ten people came back to thank Jesus for healing him.  Are you going to be the one out of ten that comes back and offers gratitude to Jesus for His answer or healing?  Or will you go along your merry way, almost immediately forgetting the One who brought about the result you had prayed for?

Asking God to fill you with His Spirit doesn’t mean that you’re rubbing a magic genie lamp, and out comes some mystical steam that you breathe in.  No, all Pastor Bill is saying today is that when you humbly ask God to help guide and lead you in your thinking and in your behaving, He’s more than happy to assist you in this way.  God’s Spirit working and moving in you is far better than any treasure that Aladdin could have found.  This supernatural influence in your life is straight from God!