Daily Devotional Podcasts

132_The value of a promise Lev 27:1-3 The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 2 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, If anyone makes a special vow to the Lord involving the valuation of persons, 3 then the valuation of a male from twenty years old up to sixty years old shall be fifty shekels of silver, according to the shekel of the sanctuary. 30 “Every tithe of the land, whether of the seed of the land or of the fruit of the trees, is the Lord's; it is holy to the Lord. 31 If a man wishes to redeem some of his tithe, he shall add a fifth to it. 32 And every tithe of herds and flocks, every tenth animal of all that pass under the herdsman's staff, shall be holy to the Lord. 33 One shall not differentiate between good or bad, neither shall he make a substitute for it; and if he does substitute for it, then both it and the substitute shall be holy; it shall not be redeemed.” It was a warm summer evening in the quaint chapel of a small countryside village. A young couple stood at the altar and exchanged vows. “For better or for worse, for richer or poorer, in sickness and in health…” The words rolled off their lips, promises made not just to each other, but before God and witnesses. Without hesitation, they expressed their determination to live in love, hope, and perseverance. Fast forward ten years. Life had thrown its curveballs. Yet they remembered the vow every day. That memory carried weight, gave strength, and steadied their feet through life’s storms. Sincere promises have power to mould character and change lives. Today we live in a culture where promises are often made in haste and forgotten with ease. Vows are treated like tissue paper—convenient, disposable, and not something to take seriously. But Scripture reveals, especially in Leviticus 27, that vows are sacred. How we treat them reveals a lot about the state of our hearts. Leviticus 27 is the final chapter of this book. Hitherto filled with intricate laws, detailed sacrifices, and holy instructions given at Mount Sinai, Leviticus ends with a chapter dealing with voluntary vows. It addresses those moments when someone, moved by gratitude, desperation, or deep reverence, chooses to offer something to God—not because they must, but because they want to. A vow, as presented here, is a solemn promise made to God—often involving the dedication of a person, animal, property, or some possession. It was a way of saying, “Lord, if you will help me, I will honor you in return.” Or, “God, because you have blessed me, I want to give this back to you.” Jacob, fleeing his home, was alone and afraid as he slept that night in the wilderness. He awoke after seeing a vision of a ladder with the Lord standing at the top. The Lord affirmed that he would bless Jacob and bring him back safely home. Naming the place Bethel, the house of God, Jacob vowed, “If God will be with me… then the Lord

131_Divine warnings Lev 26 1-13 “You shall not make idols for yourselves or erect an image or pillar, and you shall not set up a figured stone in your land to bow down to it, for I am the Lord your God. 2 You shall keep my Sabbaths and reverence my sanctuary: I am the Lord. 3 “If you walk in my statutes and observe my commandments and do them, 4 then I will give you your rains in their season, and the land shall yield its increase, and the trees of the field shall yield their fruit. 5 Your threshing shall last to the time of the grape harvest, and the grape harvest shall last to the time for sowing. And you shall eat your bread to the full and dwell in your land securely. 6 I will give peace in the land, and you shall lie down, and none shall make you afraid. And I will remove harmful beasts from the land, and the sword shall not go through your land. 7 You shall chase your enemies, and they shall fall before you by the sword. 8 Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall chase ten thousand, and your enemies shall fall before you by the sword. 9 I will turn to you and make you fruitful and multiply you and will confirm my covenant with you. 10 You shall eat old store long kept, and you shall clear out the old to make way for the new. 11 I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. 12 And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. 13 I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, that you should not be their slaves. And I have broken the bars of your yoke and made you walk erect. Not long ago, a farmer in the Midwest shared his brush with disaster. It was a dry summer, and rain had been scarce. His irrigation system kept things growing, however. One morning, walking through his field, he spotted a tiny leak from a minute crack in the irrigation system. “I’ll fix it later,” he thought. Days passed, and the crack widened. By the time he returned to fix it, the pipe was ruptured and half the field was parched. He lost half of his crops. Regretfully he admitted, “I was warned. I just didn’t take it seriously.” Warnings—whether from a leaking pipe or the quiet voice of conscience—are meant not to condemn but to protect. God, in His goodness, warns us because he longs to preserve us, and not destroy us. In Leviticus 26, God speaks tenderly but firmly to Israel. This chapter is both a trumpet and a shield—it announces danger, so that the people can take shelter in Him. God had made a covenant with Abraham, a glorious, unilateral promise: to give him offspring, land, and a blessing that would bless the world. In Genesis 15, we see this covenant vividly enacted.

130_The Year of Jubilee Lev 25:8-22 “You shall count seven weeks of years, seven times seven years, so that the time of the seven weeks of years shall give you forty-nine years. 9 Then you shall sound the loud trumpet on the tenth day of the seventh month. On the Day of Atonement you shall sound the trumpet throughout all your land. 10 And you shall consecrate the fiftieth year, and proclaim liberty throughout the land to all its inhabitants. It shall be a jubilee for you, when each of you shall return to his property and each of you shall return to his clan. 11 That fiftieth year shall be a jubilee for you; in it you shall neither sow nor reap what grows of itself nor gather the grapes from the undressed vines. 12 For it is a jubilee. It shall be holy to you. You may eat the produce of the field. 13 “In this year of jubilee each of you shall return to his property. 14 And if you make a sale to your neighbor or buy from your neighbor, you shall not wrong one another. 15 You shall pay your neighbor according to the number of years after the jubilee, and he shall sell to you according to the number of years for crops. 16 If the years are many, you shall increase the price, and if the years are few, you shall reduce the price, for it is the number of the crops that he is selling to you. 17 You shall not wrong one another, but you shall fear your God, for I am the Lord your God. 18 “Therefore you shall do my statutes and keep my rules and perform them, and then you will dwell in the land securely. 19 The land will yield its fruit, and you will eat your fill and dwell in it securely. 20 And if you say, ‘What shall we eat in the seventh year, if we may not sow or gather in our crop?’ 21 I will command my blessing on you in the sixth year, so that it will produce a crop sufficient for three years. 22 When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating some of the old crop; you shall eat the old until the ninth year, when its crop arrives. It was a dusty summer afternoon when a middle-aged woman walked into the small church office. She looked worn out—not just from the heat, but from life. She had just served a prison sentence, lost her home, and hadn’t seen her children in years. She sat down across from the pastor and softly said, “I don’t expect to be forgiven. I just need to know if there’s any place in this world where I can start again.” Her words echo the cry of millions. They long for a second chance, a chance to undo what has gone wrong and start a new page. Whether it’s a burden of debt, a broken past, or a long string of bad choices, we need a reset. And that’s exactly what God