Leviticus 18:1–3: “Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, ‘Speak to the children of Israel, and say to them: “I am the LORD your God. According to the doings of the land of Egypt, where you dwelt, you shall not do; and according to the doings of the land of Canaan, where I am bringing you, you shall not do; nor shall you walk in their ordinances.”’”

January 1st, 2023 by Pastor Ed in devotional

Moses was instructed to tell the people of God that they were to live their lives differently. They were not to live as they had seen the Egyptians live, while they were their slaves. Nor were they to begin living as the people in Canaan lived, the land God was taking them to possess. God said that they should not walk in the ordinances of either land, which were so different from the ordinances, or laws, of God.

God wants His people to recognize that their lives are a journey, a pathway, a course that they are walking. Exactly how His people walk is an important concept. In this chapter of Leviticus, God deals with sexual morality. His people’s sexual morality was to be something special that caused them to stand out as different from the heathen nations. He was trying to teach them about holiness.

Because God is holy, He wants those who come to Him to learn to be more like Him. Holiness affects even the most private places in our lives. Just like the people of God in the Old Testament, so too must New Testament believers live according to a different standard than the world in their sexual morality. It is sad but many inside the church today take their standard of sexual conduct from the world, and not from God and His Word. We must have a standard that does not slide down with the rest of what society is doing. We must follow the Biblical standard of sexual morality.

We are to be thermostats not thermometers. The thermometer simply reflects the current temperature of its surroundings. But the thermostat registers the temperature and then seeks to change it to a set standard. In the first few centuries of the church, believers could say, “Follow me as I follow Christ.” But today, heartbreakingly, the church typically has to say, “I’m sorry but don’t do as I do, do as I say.”

“LORD, help us to go against the flow of this world today and live according to Your standard. Help us to model what we know is true of You.”