Words Matter

Key Verse

But if he wishes to redeem it, he shall add a fifth to the valuation. Leviticus 27:13 ESV

Teaching, from Leviticus 27

Our words matter.  Whether we say them in the heat of the moment or we have thought about them and prayed over them for days or even months at a time, the words that we say matter.  When there are promises or vows attached to those words, they hold even more weight, and when they are promises to God, they are the most important words we could ever speak. Ecclesiastes 5:2 reminds us, “Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God.”

The Israelites would make vows to God for many reasons including worshipping and offering thanks to Him for all that He had given to them and done for them.  These were voluntary vows where they would give themselves or their family members, their animals, their houses, or their land to serve various purposes of the sanctuary. These things would be dedicated to the Lord.

God, in his infinite wisdom, knew that the Israelites would not always be able to hold up their end of the vows. He knew that they would make promises they couldn’t always keep. Abounding in compassion, mercy, and grace, God made a way for the Israelites to uphold their vows while redeeming the gifts they had originally dedicated by substituting them with money based on the values God had laid out for them. Leviticus 27 gives guidelines for valuing people, animals, houses, and land, so that the Israelites could give monetarily in order to redeem whatever they had vowed to the Lord. Based on the guidelines the Lord laid out, some things would require a 20% penalty in order to be redeemed. The money given would then be used for the maintenance of the sanctuary. 

We read in Proverbs 20:25, “It is a snare to say rashly, ‘It is holy,’ and to reflect only after making vows.” God is reminding us that we are to take seriously the promises we make to Him. We should take our time and think through the words that we are saying before we make any commitments to Him. God wants our hearts fully surrendered to Him and our lives fully devoted. He is the author and perfector of time, and He is also as patient as they come, so He is okay if He has to wait for us to be able to come to Him with our hearts and minds in the right place to make those promises. God is a promise keeper, and He wants us to keep our promises as well. 

While we no longer dedicate people, and we don’t offer our animals, houses, or land as vows to the Lord in the same way the Israelites did, we still make promises to Him. We make vows on our wedding day, we dedicate our children to the Lord, some surrender their lives to ministry, and we make promises in our daily Christian lives to Him and how we will live for Him. His desire is for us to keep those promises, and we have the Holy Spirit that enables us to keep them.

Photo by Artem Kovalev on Unsplash

My Moment

What promise have you made to God that you haven’t followed through on, and what’s holding you back? What promise has God been stirring in your heart for you to make to Him that you haven’t fully committed to yet, and what steps could you take in making that vow? 

God has placed on my heart to give Him my mornings. As a mom of three young kids, it’s not easy to have my quiet time with Him before they are awake, but it’s always been a desire of mine. There have been seasons I’ve heard Him say, “Not right now, just spend time with me as you can.” But now, in this season, I hear Him asking me to give Him my “first fruits” – the first minutes of my day. I’m committing to opening the First5 App to start my day and spend time in prayer instead of checking social media, texts, and emails. 

More Moments about Leviticus 27

While verses 1 through 25 focus on the things that are redeemable, the Lord clearly outlined things for the Israelites that were considered unredeemable. We see descriptions in verses 26 through 34 of the things that God regarded unredeemable, meaning there was not a valuation given for the people to “buy back” because it already belonged to the Lord based on statutes given in other areas of scripture. The unredeemable things included the firstborn animals, things devoted to the Lord, and the tithes of the land.

It’s important to note the difference in unredeemable: not able to be redeemed and irredeemable: not able to be saved, improved, or corrected. It wasn’t that these things had lesser value or couldn’t be saved according to the Lord, it was the opposite.  The things that were unredeemable mattered greatly to the Lord.

Looking at redeemable vs unredeemable vs irredeemable, the matter that is of greatest importance to us is that the Lord looked on us and considered us redeemable: able to be recovered or saved. We could not ever redeem ourselves, but God made a way for us to be redeemed through the life, death, and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ. (Isaiah 53:3-9)

Major Moment

God kept His word and He expected His people to do the same.