The biblical concept of first-fruits has been at the forefront of my mind recently. Pastor Steve’s sermon this past Sunday made me further reflect on the nature of giving back to God. The roots of first-fruits are found from the earliest pages of Scripture but it isn’t until the Exodus that God implements it as a required offering to Him. We read of this pronouncement in Exodus 23:14-17, and it is to be the 2nd in a 3-set series of annual festivals: Passover, Harvest (First-Fruits), and Ingathering (Festival of Booths).
14 “Three times a year you are to celebrate a festival to me.
15 “Celebrate the Festival of Unleavened Bread; for seven days eat bread made without yeast, as I commanded you. Do this at the appointed time in the month of Aviv, for in that month you came out of Egypt.
“No one is to appear before me empty-handed.
16 “Celebrate the Festival of Harvest with the firstfruits of the crops you sow in your field.
“Celebrate the Festival of Ingathering at the end of the year, when you gather in your crops from the field.
17 “Three times a year all the men are to appear before the Sovereign LORD.
There is so much theological information packed into the historical Jewish festivals, (I highly recommend Messiah in the Feasts of Israel by Sam Nadler), but in this case the concept behind offering the first-fruits of a crop demonstrates a trust that God will protect and provide. With the first of your crops being sacrificed you were at the mercy of any potential natural catastrophe for the rest of the year. If a hailstorm or drought wiped out your crops mid-season you now had nothing to rely on to get you through the rest of the year.
God, however, promised blessing through this sacrifice of first-fruits. We read in Proverbs 3:9-10 that:
9 Honor the LORD with your wealth,
with the first-fruits of all your crops;
10 then your barns will be filled to overflowing,
and your vats will brim over with new wine.
It’s one thing to trust and honor God when there is little risk involved but that isn’t what God is requiring of His people here. He is asking His people to trust Him even when it doesn’t necessarily make practical sense to do so. It doesn’t take long for our human minds to go straight back to the original doubts of Eden, “Did God really say we had to sacrifice our first-fruits? Did He really say we had to sacrifice them every year? He probably only meant once we had enough that we should give Him some back.”
Flash forward now a few thousand years and it is an even easier thought process to sink into. In ancient Israel, a majority of the population were depend on an agrarian economy; you were responsible for growing or raising the things you needed to eat or wear. As such you were dependent on God providing blessings through nature to ensure good harvests. That is no longer the case today, especially in Western society. Grocery stores, department stores, and Amazon shopping all minimize the concept of dependence on God…if I want something it is only a short drive or couple mouse clicks away. Even the process of tithing has transformed into something that isn’t necessarily a conscious effort; it is simple to set up automatic withdrawal from a bank account to donate to the church or other ministry.
It is often stated that money is the most valuable thing to Americans but I think it would be more accurate to say time is the most valuable thing. This is easy to see when we look at our willingness to either pay someone else to fix things or to simply replace them. Fixing things ourselves takes time. Companies like GrubHub and Door Dash exist because we are willing to pay someone extra to go and get our easily accessible fast-food for us rather than spending the time to do it ourselves. This is seen in the church as well because there is certainly a greater percentage of people willing to give financially than there is willing to give of their time.
A true offering of first-fruits in our society today has to involve an offering of our time. It is the thing we prize over all else and the thing it seems we cannot live without. Too often the time we offer God is our last-fruits, not our first-fruits. The end of the day prayer just before bed where we fall asleep in the middle. Saying there is no time for reading our Bibles, but somehow there is ample time to read our social media feeds. I have had to fight this mindset even in the creation of this post as a couple of games of online chess took priority over finishing the writing God intentionally placed on my heart. It is convicting for me to type those words…
A first-fruit blessing awaits, however, for anyone who offers the best/choicest portion of their time to God. I don’t think that God will stop the sun in order to give extra time to you but the time you have will be sweeter. It is easy to say, “I don’t have time in the morning to spend with God.” but I can guarantee the time spent this way will set up the rest of the day to be more blessed. Remember that our time on earth is meant to train us to spend eternity with Him so it seems reasonable that time sacrificed for learning how to fellowship with God now, will lead to a more blessed time of fellowshipping with Him in eternity.
I encourage you to find ways to invest the best of your time to moving God’s Kingdom forward. This is time that is spent personally between you and God as well as time spent in His work in the world. This could be through your church, a para-church organization or even a ministry God has placed on your heart to get started. God has promised to bless our sacrifices and provide abundantly in ways that defy our expectations so I pray that you will join with me in finding ways to intentionally offer Him the best of the time that we have. Blessings to you all!
