Leviticus 11 is about the laws regarding clean and unclean animals. There are animals that crawl, swim, fly, and walk that are clean and that are unclean to eat. There are a couple of repeated lines in Leviticus 11, ones we read elsewhere as well. One of them we just read in Leviticus 10, that all this was “to make a distinction between the unclean and the clean.”

In every aspect of our lives there’s to be a distinction. The command to “Be ye separate,” isn’t about going to church on Sundays. It’s about this, distinguishing between the clean and the unclean. In other words, it’s about being holy.

That’s the other repeated line in this chapter: “Be holy, for I am holy.” That’s like saying be set apart, because I am set apart.

It’s like Moses saying, “Who’s on the Lord’s side?” and the Levites coming to him and taking a stand against the others. It’s like Abraham leaving home. It’s like Lot leaving home. It’s like Ruth leaving her home. It’s like Rahab leaving her home.

I’m seeing a pattern. Becoming a Christian is becoming a follower of Jesus, which means leaving our old lives behind.

God calls Abraham to leave his home and God says he will be taken to a new land. He has to obey and leave first in order to enter into the Promised Land.

We’re taken into the kingdom of God, but we have to leave our home first.

If we don’t walk away from our past, from our comforts, from our “self” and all of this world we want to hold onto, then we can’t be led into the kingdom. We can’t walk in the kingdom if we won’t set foot out of our old life.

It’s not about “do this and don’t do that.” It’s not about the list of rules that you are to follow. It’s about dying to self and resurrecting with the life of Christ. It’s accepting death so that you might live. It’s willingly giving up our fleshly desires so that His desires can be born in us.

It’s being like Jesus who left home and gave up the perfection of heaven and a position of power to be born a baby because obeying the Father leads to a greater glory and a greater good that we could never know with it.