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Scripture References: Leviticus 3:1-17, Leviticus 7:1-38

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From Series: "Basic Human Needs"

An excellent study of the holiness of God. "If you want to get at the meaning of this word you must go back to its original root. This word is derived from the same root from which a very attractive English word comes. This is the word 'wholeness.' So that holiness means wholeness, being complete. And if you read 'wholeness' in place of 'holiness' everywhere you find it in the Bible you will be much closer to what the writers of that book meant. We all know what wholeness is. It is to have together all the parts which were intended to be there, and to have them functioning as they were intended to function. That is what God is talking about. He says to this people, 'you shall be whole, because I am whole.' God is complete; he is perfect. There is no blemish in God; he lives in harmony with himself. He is a beautiful person. He is absolutely what a person ought to be. He is filled with joy and love and peace. He lives in wholeness. And he looks at us in our brokenness and says to us, 'You, too, shall be whole.' That word, wholeness, has power to awaken desire within us. We long to be whole people. Don't you? Don't you want to be what God made you to be, with all the ingredients of your personality able to be expressed in balance. That is to be a beautiful person, and that is what God is after. That is what the book of Leviticus is all about. In fact, the whole Bible is on that theme."

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