Good Morning Meetpastordan Readers…When I opened my eyes at “0-dark:30 hour”, one of my favorite childhood hymns was resounding in my mind, taking me back to my Evangelical United Brethren Church days. “All to Jesus I surrender, all to Him I freely give. I will ever love and trust Him, in His presence daily live. I surrender all; I surrender all; all to Thee my blessed Savior, I surrender all.” I loved singing the hymns, but I have to admit that I was much more interested in picking out the alto and tenor parts than I was is listening to the message of the lyrics. But today…Wow! I am amazed at how succinct, yet powerful those words are.
Three weeks ago I mentioned that I was in prayer asking for guidance concerning a topic for that particular day, when I got a download of topics that was going to last me for the month. Well, this is week three of that “topic jackpot”, so I suspect this hymn was to remind me of today’s message…and remind me it did! That hymn perfectly encapsulates today’s topic.
In God’s eyes, the principle of “First” cannot be ignored. Let’s start with his Law. Not surprising, the first Commandment is “I am the Lord your God, who rescued you from Egypt, the place of your slavery. You are to have no other god(s) before me.” And just so you don’t miss it, the first Commandment is restated in the second Commandment: “Do not make idols of any kind, whether in the shape of birds or animals or fish. You must never worship or bow down to them, for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God who will never share your affection with any other god!”
In other words, God wants to be first in our lives, and he’s made it quite clear that he’s not interested in sharing our attention or affection with any other “god”. Now just to be crystal clear, a “god” is anything that replaces Him as first in our life, and it can take the form of our money, our job, striving for power and prestige, more bigger and better material “things”, relationships, addictions, etc. “Wow”, you say, “That’s impossible. I can’t do that!” And you would be right. It’s against our human nature to surrender to something we don’t know about, can’t see or can’t touch.
But God has made it clear to us that “if we will seek him, we will surly find him.” (Jeremiah 29:13) And once we have come to know God, it doesn’t take long to figure out that his will for us is two-fold. First, that we accept his Gift of Grace – Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior; and second, that we continue to grow in our relationship with Jesus. It is in this process of becoming more Christ-like that our life begins to change and the blessings start to come.
Because God is a loving God and we are his proudest creation, he delights in blessing us. And he displayed how much he wanted to bless us when he implemented his plan for our salvation, and that was in place even before the world was created. Romans 5:6 describes this scenario: “When we were utterly helpless, Christ came at just the right time and died for us sinners.” Notice that God didn’t wait for us to clean up our act to be ready for redemption. No indeed! This is the perfect example of his unconditional, unending, unfailing love for us. We had proven to him from Creation to 2017 years ago that we couldn’t do it ourselves, so he “gave his only begotten Son” (to pay the price for our sins), that whoever would believe in him would not perish, but have eternal life.” Notice the qualification for this gift…”that whoever would believe in him”. No “ands” or “buts” attached to it. It’s all about belief and trust.
When God gave the 10 Commandments to the Israelites, those ten laws were given as civil law. Remember the Israelites had been in bondage to Egypt for four hundred years, so once they were given freedom and were wondering around in the wilderness, they had no idea how to live as a self-governing community. Chaos prevailed. So God gave these Commandments to Moses and his chosen people so they would be safe and could live in peace and harmony. All God asked was that they would obey and trust him and the Commandments, and if they agreed, he would bless them abundantly. That promise is still in effect today, and “yes” it still presents as much a challenge to us as it did to the original recipients thousands of years ago.
One way God has asked us to show our trust in him is to provide the gift of “first fruit.” When we give our best to Him in everything we do, he is faithful to bless us for our faithfulness. This principle goes all the way back to Genesis and Cain and Able. Able was a herder, and he brought an offering to God that was his first-born lamb. God accepted this because it was the first-born. Cain was a farmer, and he completed his harvest first, then he brought to God a bushel basked of fruit that had fallen from the tree to the ground. God did not accept this offering because he wants our best first.
In Exodus 3:2, God says, “Consecrate to Me all the firstborn males… both man or beast. It is mine! For the livestock, if an unclean animal such as a donkey (for example) was first born, it had to be redeemed by the sacrifice of a clean first-born lamb. That is the only way it would be acceptable to God. Do you see how this principle still holds true today? Man is born unclean because he is a descendent of Adam. Christ is the clean (sin free) sacrificial lamb who’s blood was shed to redeem us. And the sacrifice of Jesus put an end to all sacrifices. His payment forgives our sin forever.
Four hundred years before the birth of Jesus Christ, God spoke through the Prophet Malachi and addresses the principle of giving our first-fruit to him. He also is specific in his challenge and the promised blessing. “I am the Lord, and I do not change. Ever since the days of your ancestors, you have scorned my laws and failed to obey them. Now return to me, and I will return to you,’ says the Lord God Almighty. You have cheated me of the tithes and offerings due to me. You are under a curse, for your whole nation has been cheating me. Bring all the tithes into the storehouse so there will be enough food in my Temple. If you do’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘I will open the windows of heaven for you. I will pour out a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in. Try it! Let me prove it to you! Your crops will be abundant…your grapes will not shrivel before they are ripe.” (Malachi 3: 8-11) Could God be more specific about his desire to bless us for our faithfulness?
The term “tithe” means 1/10th. But to receive the blessings from God, he wants our tithe to be our first-fruit, unlike Cain’s. His promise to us is that if we give to him in faith our first 10%, he will bless our remaining 90% “with a blessing so great you won’t have enough room to take it in.” It is very important to see what God blesses. It is not our amount: it is our faithfulness, it’s our trust in Him to do what he says he will do!!
Everything we have comes from God; our gifts, our talents; our breaks in life; our salvation. It’s all his, and from him. We are just stewards of these gifts while we’re here, but how we use them will have eternal consequences. He gave us his best… “his only begotten Son.” So why would we hesitate to give him our best? Remember, it’s all about the heart…our heart. Giving to God first is how we say, “Thank you for what you’ve done for me. And it gives him the opportunity to do what he loves to do in return…to bless us!!
Feel free to respond to this post, and please “like” and share it with other social media friends.
May God Bless Ya…
Dan Presgrave (a.k.a. Pastor Dan)
Leave a Comment