Meal Offering
Leviticus can seem sometimes like a boring book, but it is really important. It points not only to revival but the way to the very presence of God. Leviticus talks about 5 different offerings. These offerings bring us into perfection, meaning the place where we are able to successfully fulfill God’s purpose in our lives. And while the first offering, the burnt offering corresponds to the first commandment (love God with all your heart), the second offering, the meal offering, corresponds to the second commandment- to love your neighbor as you love yourself. The meal offering consists of 4 ingredients: fine flour, oil, frankincense, and salt (Lev 2:1). I’m going to go over what each of these stand for. It is important that we become a meal offering to reach people with our lives.
Fine Flour
Flour represents the word of God becoming flesh in our lives. This means that it is not enough to just know doctrine or even speak truth, but you must become truth as Jesus did. Everything that Jesus was and did expressed a certain truth. Many people will not read the word of God, but they will read your life. The attack today is not on the word of God, but on the credibility of Christians and leaders.
The fine quality of this flour represents going through the mill meaning suffering, pressures, and trials. People that do not go through the mill have no fragrance in their life and nothing to give. God always used this method to raise his children, think Paul, Joseph, David. Going through this process allowed Joseph to react to his brothers with weeping and gladness. He exhibited the traits of God’s love and forgiveness. Just as God first told Paul that he would suffer, we too are first called to suffer.
jn 6:3, 2 cor 3:2
Oil
Next oil is poured on to the flour. Oil represents peace and the anointing of the Spirit. Some people love God, but rub people the wrong way (or people easily rub them the wrong way.) They possess truth, but as proverbs states, you must use knowledge rightly. As James says, wisdom that comes from above is peaceable. Your relationships with men must be harmonious and bring peace, not discomfort or discord. The church has made many enemies with using truth wrongly…. Just look at the crusades.
In order to have peace, you must possess patience and longsuffering. This requires the anointing of the Spirit. Think of a wick and oil in a lamp. The wick stands for your personality, your character… you. The oil represents the oil of the anointing of the Spirit. If there is too much wick, there is only a lot of smoke and an awful smell. But when the wick is trimmed back just right (by God, the Word, Jesus), then the oil can work through the wick to produce light.
Proverbs 16:20, James 3:17, Prov 15:2, Gal 5:22
Frankincense
Frankincense always stands for faith, but in this example it does not mean faith God-ward but man-ward. In order to love people, you must see them through the eyes of faith. You must look past all of their quirks and faults and see who they have the potential to be IN GOD. Do not write people off or become intolerant, or they will sense this and close their heart to you. But if you see them the way that God sees them, you will reach them.
You can’t judge a brother until you have walked a full two moons in his moccasins –Old Indian Proverb
You must try to understand that people have been hurt by this world. You don’t know where they are coming from, what they’ve been through, or how hurt they are. You must look beyond with a heart that has faith in all that God can do with their life.
Song of Songs 4:12-16, Gal 5:22-23
Salt
Salt speaks of sincerity. Colossians 4:6 states that we must have speech with grace seasoned with salt that you might have an answer to those that asks of you. There must be no falseness. Our actions and attitudes must be without hypocrisy (James 3:17). God hates religion and pretense. Your love and caring must genuinely come from the heart. The world is looking for real, sincere love.
You know two things were not allowed in this meal offering: leaven and honey. Leaven speaks of false doctrine and hypocrisy. Honey represents human sweetness, that pseudo-sweetness that we all know and have sensed. It’s more of a psychology than a real emotion.
“OOzing charm from every pore, he oiled his way across the floor.” –Prof. Higgins, My Fair Lady
Human sweetness is not what the world is after. They are after the real thing. Honey cannot stand the fire. All human/false sweetness goes right out the window under pressure and in hard situations. But genuine sweetness, love and concern comes out of the heart and withstands the fire.
Lev 2:11, 1 Cor 5:8
In order to touch the lives of people, God requires a meal offering. We need the right ingredients in order to come4 to perfection and be used by God. Your life has to become a meal offering. We live in a false world. Everything about it is false. The pressures of life, the whole of our society is fed a lie. And people are fed up with it. When your life contains the ingredients of the meal offering, people will beat a path to your door. There will not only be the evident presence of God in your life, but you will be used by God to touch many people and usher them into a relationship with Him.
February 14 2010 03:30 pm | Bible Study
Tina Nahid on 14 Feb 2010 at 9:02 pm #
Very interesting and good insights, Lauren. Enjoyed reading it. I especially like the part about seeing other’s through God’s eyes, not only to see their “potential” but to see how much God loves them just as they are. I also like the false vs. true “agape” love. Learning so much about this in our study…
May we always remember that the meal offering now has everything to do with “partaking” of His Life, the life of Jesus, being a partaker of the meal which is Christ. He is our Bread, and He is our Wine. He is our everything. And as we abide in Him in love and listen to His Spirit, by His supernatural Grace, He will lead us in all ways to becoming a light for others.
It is not about our human effort to DO or to BE an offering. It is about what He has done for us, how He has become the eternal offering for all mankind that is of ultimate importance. It is living in the light of His victory on the Cross, living in the light of what He has done for us that will show forth to others.
I truly believe our Father is seeking His children because of His love and because of the gift of His Son, not because of what He can make us into or what our potential is, but purely because He wanted to restore eternal life with Himself back to us. What we become as we abide in Him is a natural (or supernatural) by-product of living with gratitude and intimacy. We are being sanctified by His grace, from glory to glory, as a progression of our relationship with Him.
Thank you for your love and your zeal for the Lord and His ways, Lauren. He loves you so much. You are His sweet and precious daughter.
Tina