FIRSTFRUITS
Honour the Lord with your possessions, and with the firstfruits of all your increase; so your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will overflow with new wine. (Prov. 3:9-10 NKJV)
I have friends who I know give their firstfruits conscientiously. Some do so by bringing to church their first salary each year without fail as firstfruit. Some give part of the total income of the previous year as seed sown into the new year, while some give the whole of the first sale from their business as first offering. Yet some unliberated folks still bring real fruits from their first harvest. These people have made this a habit which they hardly break. An attempt to emulate them may need great determination and prayers to accomplish!
God gave these words through Moses to the children of Israel: “When you come into the land which I give you and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest.” —Leviticus 23:10. One blogger wrote on this: _"First fruit offerings are typically an annual gift to the church done at “harvest time.” Because we’re not actually harvesting crops, the harvest can mean different things to different people. Perhaps you just got a bonus at work. Maybe you just received a huge tax refund cheque. Maybe you saved 15% or more on car insurance. These are all harvest time moments when your hard work paid off. These are also great opportunities to turn back to God in gratitude for the blessings.Whenever you decide to make a first fruit offering, the important thing is that you do it freely, with no guilt or obligation. This is supposed to be a celebration of all that God has done for you. It’s a kind of worship that you can use to support the work of others"_ [Tithe.ly Blog].
Firstfruit should not be confused with tithe. Tithe is a demand from God to the people in the household of God. It is a command by God to His people to pay a specified percentage of their income to Him consistently to provide provision in His sanctuary; while firstfruit is an unspecified freewill offering given voluntarily to God for His servants. Both of them attract God's abundant blessings, but are subject to choice by individuals.
The first thing King Solomon did upon succesfully completing the magnificent temple for God's worship in Jerusalem was to present an unprecedented amount of offering to God. He went further and fed the whole congregation of the children of Israel for seven days! (1Kings 8, 9). That was his firstfruit to appreciate what God had done for him and His people. In answer, God appeared to him a second time and blessed him saying, "You shall not fail to have a man on the throne of Israel" (1Kings 9:5). You too can choose to have God bless you and your lineage forever!
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