Tetzaveh: Morning and Evening Sacrifice

Morning and Evening Sacrifice: Connecting with God through Torah Study

In this episode of the Perfect Body Podcast, Shirah Chanté, Relationship Artist, discusses the Torah portion Tetzaveh. She explains the significance of the Levitical priesthood, the consecration of Aaron and his sons, and the specific garments they were to wear. Chanté also delves into the morning and evening sacrifices and the importance of regular worship. She shares personal anecdotes about her spiritual journey and encourages listeners to establish their own morning and evening prayer routines. She emphasizes the value of staying close to God and finding joy in regular worship and Bible study. The episode concludes with a prayer for guidance in maintaining these spiritual practices.

00:00 Introduction and Purpose of the Podcast

01:57 Personal Journey and Faith

03:44 Studying the Torah: Focus on Exodus

04:53 The Priesthood and Garments

08:51 The Importance of Incense

11:55 Morning and Evening Sacrifices

15:07 Encouragement for Personal Devotion

19:14 Conclusion and Next Steps

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Transcript

 You have a perfect body.

Hi everyone, it's Shira Chanté, Relationship Artist, healing hearts through the arts and helping God's people with relationships here today with Perfect Body Podcast, a Torah portion afterthought. We are studying the books of the Torah. One week later, that's why I call it an afterthought. It is definitely not any less in our mind or less in our heart.

We love the Lord, our God, but all our heart, all our mind. All our souls and all our strength. Woo. Yes. And we love others as ourselves. That is the first and second commandment that Jesus, Yeshua, the Messiah, wrap all the 10 commandments into those two, because if you love God with everything that is in you, you're going to obey the law.

As best as you can. No one's perfect and I understand that, but your heart is going to be toward God. And loving the Lord. Is priority in our life. And that's what we're going to talk about today. I am so happy to be studying the Torah with you. Thank you for joining me. Thank you for having the heart to learn about God and to grow closer to God.

It's a joy. It's all it's the. Ah, the number one joy is just knowing God and being close to him. That's why I decided to attend a divinity school many years ago when I was 24 years old. And I just said, I really need to know who this God is. Because he had taken care of me through some major ups and downs when I went to Los Angeles, California, after I graduated from college in New Orleans, Louisiana at Tulane University, I drove, I needed to get out of New Orleans, and so I Felt like I just, I was led to go to Los Angeles.

I knew one person there and I had a very, like a turbulent kind of time during that year and a half of just finding myself going, doing some self discovery is really what happened. And I found God and he. He just showed up in my life and just taught me about him and I grew closer to him and so I wanted to learn even more about him.

I thought, I really need to know more about this God. I gave my life to God when I went to Jesus, when I was the son of God. When I was 12 years old and I always loved Jesus, but I, but there's like a growth you have to have, from when you're a child to when you're an adult into you.

And when you're, there should be a constant growth in your faith. You don't just, Oh, I love God. Now you're probably going to love God a little bit differently. Then you did when you were three years old, when you're 10, and then when you're 13 and when you're 22, your development as you grow older, should grow.

In God and in the knowledge of him. And so that's what we're here to do. We're here to study the Bible, study the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. We are now in the book of Exodus. We are studying Tetzavah, Tetz, wait, Tetzaveh,

my Hebrew is rusty

And it means she to command, you shall command. That is the meaning of Tetzaveh. And I'm going to read a little bit about what's going on. There's a part that the Lord put on my heart to speak on tonight. It's It's not impossible, but it is to go through the whole Torah portion in 20 minutes.

There's a lot here. Even the little 20 minutes we have is definitely not enough to to really go deep as we can go. And so that's what we're going to talk about today. And I'm just thrilled to be going through this with you, because this is helping me too. I'm not like just a teacher here.

I'm in this with you. I'm getting to know God with you. And so the priest garments are what this Torah portion starts off talking about Aaron and his sons. Aaron is the Levitical of the line of the Levitical priesthood. Him and Moses or Levites, the Levites are the tribe. Of the Israelites that served the Lord in the priesthood.

And so Aaron had four sons. Ahab Nabihu. I'm not gonna try to say all of it. Let me see if I can find it. Let me find it. Let me see. I don't know why I thought I knew it by heart. Okay. Nadab. Oh, I did. Nadab. Abihu. Abihu. Abihu. Eleazar and Ithamar. And it says here, you shall speak to all the skillful whom I have filled with a spirit of skill, that they make Aaron's garments to consecrate him for my priesthood.

And so there is an order of the priesthood. There is very specific, very holy, very consecrated walk to be a priest of God. And I know it's the power of God that was living inside the Levites. That they were able to fulfill that role, because it's a very high role. It's you're serving God.

You're basically the conduit between God and the people. And so that is a very serious role and that Aaron and his sons had, and any Levitical priest has this day and age, there are still people who are in the line of the Levites and. And so not just the Levites, but all the tribes, but we're talking about the Levitical priesthood at this moment.

And so it's a very special very special calling. And so this Torah portion goes through what they're supposed to wear and all of the cords and the colors, everything the ephod that they wore on their chest with the stones. These are the stones that were. I want to say it has to do with the Thummim, but I don't think we've gotten to that part yet, but, okay, so let's just let me just read this for you.

You shall make a breast piece of judgment. That's what it is. Okay. In skilled work and the style of the ephod, you shall make it. This is Exodus chapter 28, verse 15 gold, blue, purple, and scarlet yarns. and fine twined linen shall you make it. It shall be square and doubled, a span its length, and a span its breadth.

You shall set in it four rows of stones. Four rows. Here's the first row. The first row has sardius, topaz, carbuncle, and okay, just three. And then the second row has emerald, sapphire, and diamond. And the third row has Jacinthe, Agate, and Amethyst. And the fourth row has Beryl, Onyx, and Jasper. So four rows of three stones are in this ephod that the priest wore on his body.

And All of these special preparations are being made for Aaron and his sons to serve God and the Israelites, and to put forth the daily offerings, the daily incense, the daily All kinds of offerings. There's, we're going to go through a whole bunch of offerings coming up soon.

There's a, God goes in detail about the offering. This is just an introduction into these offerings. I just want to say a little something that just came to my mind about incense. And I want to read something in Exodus chapter 30. It says, verse 9, You shall not offer unauthorized incense on it, or a burnt offering, or a grain offering, and you shall not pour a drink offering on it.

Aaron shall make atonement on its horns once a year with the blood of the sin offering of atonement. He shall make atonement for it once in the year throughout your generations. It is most holy to the Lord. So right here, he's talking about he's talking about the altar, the altar. Wow. The altar in which to burn the incense that there is a special incense that The Lord commanded the Israelites to burn and anything other than that special incense was deadly.

And we're going to see that coming up, but I just want to talk about that. One time I was this was maybe back in 2003. So maybe like 20, what's that? 22 years ago. I was, I bought some incense. I just thought, Oh, some incense, someone was selling incense. I bought some and I started burning them in my apartment, in my little studio.

And then I, I guess I did this for maybe, I don't know, maybe less than a week, it wasn't even a week, but the Lord clearly spoke to me and said, don't burn this incense. This incense is not good. I don't know what was wrong with it. I don't, but it was definitely not, it wasn't the right spirit and this, whatever this incense came from, or the person I got it from, maybe it had some prayer said over it.

I don't know, but you want to be careful about incense. That's all I'm, that's all I'm saying. You might want to lift that up to the Lord and ask if it's okay. If you burn incense, because it's there's something spiritual there that that could be happening that may or may not be good for you. And I know in the case of when I bought the incense and I started burning it, the Lord told me to stop burning it.

And so I just threw it away and I was obedient. And that was that. I really never asked the Lord why I just did it. If he said it wasn't good, that was good enough for me. May I, it just wasn't that important for me to ask why at that moment, or maybe I, if I have time or I don't know if it's.

Something I want to learn about, I'll ask him, but I just knew it wasn't good. And so I just threw it away. The Bible says, be innocent concerning evil. I don't really have all day to learn about evil. I want to learn about God. I want to learn about good things. I want to do what is right. And so thinking about what's doing what's right, the name of this show tonight is Tetz of the morning and the evening sacrifice, morning and evening sacrifice.

And so I'm going to read about what that is, and then we're going to talk about that. This is really, this is going to be really cool. Okay. So Exodus chapter 29, verse 38. Now, this is what you shall offer on the altar. Two lambs a year old, day by day, regularly. One lamb you shall offer in the morning, and the other lamb you shall offer at twilight.

And with the first lamb, a tenth measure of fine flour, mingled with a fire of a hen of beaten oil, and a fourth of a hen of wine for a drink offering, as in the other lamb you shall offer at twilight, and shall offer it with a grain offering, and its drink offering, as in the morning, for a pleasing aroma, a food offering to the Lord.

Verse 42, it shall be a regular burnt offering throughout your generations, the entrance of the tent of meeting, I keep skipping lines here, throughout your generations at the entrance of the tent of meeting before the Lord. Where I will meet with you, to speak to you there. I'm just so excited about what's about to come up.

There I will meet with the people of Israel and it shall be sanctified by my glory. I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar. Aaron also and his sons I will consecrate to serve me as priests. This is it. I will dwell among the people of Israel, and will be their God, and they shall know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them.

I am the Lord, their God.

I will dwell among the people. God says, I will dwell among them. I am the Lord, their God. They're going to know me. This was my desire when I was 24 years old. I just wanted to know God. Do you know how special that is? That he's making a space. He's making it possible. That the children of Israel can know him and that he can show them who this God is, who brought them out of the land of Egypt with an outstretched arm and a mighty hand and an outstretched arm.

My God. And I want to talk about this morning and evening sacrifice, and I want to relate it to our day and how I believe we can have this. Morning and evening sacrifice in our own home, not on an altar, not nothing like that, not with an animal, but with prayer and just a time we meet with the God.

Reading his word, reading the Bible, just a study time and doing that, I'm thinking perhaps we should do this twice a day. God says, meeting in the morning and meeting in the evening with God. And I know I there was a time when I really had this very set schedule with the Lord. And I really.

Want to go back to that. I still pray every in the mornings. I could be more diligent and I'm hoping that you will join me in this quest that we could create a time in the morning, a time in the evening where we spend with God, it could be just you, it could be your family, your children, some people call it a family altar, just like.

The the Israelites were told to make an altar for God for the sacrifices for the animals. And for the flower and the wine and all those things, that you can have a sacrifice, an altar at your house, where you worship and praise and read the word of God and pray. So I really want to ask you to join in with me in this.

I want to create this time in the morning and the evening with the Lord. And so I'm going to set up a time. You set up a time that's convenient for you and your life and your family. I'm going to set up a time for me that's convenient for me and my family. And I really want to do this. I really believe that I like to follow the biblical model.

And if God believes it's important to meet in the morning and in the evening, then I believe we should follow that. We should follow that paradigm, that model, that method, that template of life. And so that's what I'm really excited about because I, this is something that I would love to do. And I just want it.

I need the encouragement and the word of God is encouraging me right now. And I really hope and pray it's encouraging you to build your own morning and evening sacrifice to the Lord. It could be Bible study. It could be meditation. I'm still working on my book on meditation. I don't know if I mentioned that before, but and.

It could be prayer. It could be just singing a song. It doesn't have to be, don't make it laborious or you won't do it. Make it easy. Start with five minutes. Start with, okay, I'm going to sing a song with, to the Lord every morning and every evening, just start there. And you know what? The Lord will lead you.

What you, he will take your efforts, your sincere effort to meet with him. In the morning and the evening and he will multiply it. He will give you ideas. He will give you time to do it and he will give you special opportunities to spend with him and it will be a really beautiful blessing for you.

And for your family and who, and anyone who's involved in your morning and evening sacrifice. So I'm going to do it and I'm looking forward to setting up this time and sticking to it. And I know the Holy spirit will help us. So I'm just going to pray that prayer for all who want to offer a time to the Lord, their own altar of sacrifice.

Father God, you see your people standing before you, sitting before you, listening to this podcast where we're studying the word of God, the Torah, and just like you ordained the Levitical priesthood, Aaron and his four sons to worship you and to serve you in the morning and in the evening. Father God, to bring forth the morning and the evening sacrifice.

Lord God, I have a heart to do the same, and those who are listening, there's someone who has a heart to get closer to you and want to follow this biblical mandate of meeting with the Lord in the morning, and meeting with the Lord In the evening as well at twilight. And so father help us to arrange our schedules, help us to not give up, cause things happen and, we have different things going on in life, help us to be able to work around what we're already doing in life and our obligations and our family duties.

And help us to keep this time with you special in Jesus name, I pray. Amen. And thank God I'm looking forward to this time. I, this is something that I want anyway. I always want to grow closer to the God. And here's my chance. And here's your chance as well. So thank you for joining me on the TETSEVA Torah portion.

There's a new Torah portion that started today and we're going to go over that one next Shabbat, next Saturday. The Torah portion from today is I think it's Kitazat, Kitisa, and so I hope everyone had a happy Purim. Purim is one of my favorite holidays. I like all the activities and how the children are involved and remember to love God, love you, and love people.