\u201cThe life of a creature is in the blood. . . .\u201d
\n \u2014 Leviticus 17:11<\/p>\n
We have about 30 trillion blood cells moving through about 60,000 miles of blood vessels in our bodies. And if we lose more than 40 percent of our blood, our life will be at serious risk. The words of Leviticus 17:11 are true: \u201cThe life of a creature is in the blood.\u201dMany of our readings in Leviticus this month have mentioned something about blood. Leviticus 17 explains why. First, blood is treated with respect because it represents life, and life is a gift from God. Our culture may emphasize that we should do as we please in life. But because life is God\u2019s gift to us, God is the rightful authority over our lives. For this reason Israel was called to safeguard the well-being of God\u2019s creatures. We must value and protect all life against needless harm and death.The shedding of blood also symbolized how one life was given in exchange for another. Blood was God\u2019s gift for making atonement, showing that sin was serious and would lead to being cut off from God and his people.On the night of his arrest, Jesus explained how his blood would be poured out, and his life given, for us (Luke 22:20). Though we are guilty, Jesus was cut off from his Father and his people so that we could be restored to the joy of God\u2019s presence. God not only requires a sacrifice as payment for our sin, but he also provides it through Jesus!<\/p>\n
Lord Jesus, your blood was poured out so that we can have full, eternal life! Though we cannot repay you for this gift, help us to live in thankfulness to you. Amen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u201cThe life of a creature is in the blood. . . .\u201d \u2014 Leviticus 17:11 We have about 30 trillion blood cells moving through about 60,000 miles of blood vessels in our bodies. And if we lose more than 40 percent of our blood, our life will be at serious risk. The words of Leviticus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10646,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[952,2300,374,331],"class_list":{"0":"post-10645","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-devotionals","8":"tag-gift","9":"tag-gracious","10":"tag-king","11":"tag-life"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10645","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/10646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/biblelon.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}