Pray Till Pentecost – Finances Devotion (2/3)
Ever been slightly confused by a scripture, well check this one out…
‘When the Lord brings you into the land of Canaanites, as he swore to you and to your fathers, and gives it to you, then you must give over the Lord the first offspring of every womb. Every firstling of a beast you have – the males will be the Lord’s. Every firstling of a donkey you must redeem with a lamb, and if you do not redeem it, then you must break its neck. Every firstborn of your sons you must redeem.’
You might be thinking, how does this relate to my finances? Let’s break it down:
Here we see the Lord asking the Isrealites to sacrifice the first of something clean (lamb) in order to redeem the first of something which is unclean (donkey).
Two key takeaways from this request of the Lord are:
- God wants our first fruits not our leftovers
- God exampled how to give our first fruits when He sacrificed his first son, Jesus (something clean) in order to redeem you and I (something unclean).
The greatest revelation I’ve had recently regarding the first takeaway is that when God refers to tithing in the bible, he never invites us to GIVE the tithe, he only ever invites us to BRING the tithe. Why is this? It is because we cannot give what we do not own. Tithing is a biblical principle in which Jesus confirms in Matthew 23:23 and is founded on us joyfully bringing our first fruits, not our left overs into the local storehouse or where you are being ministered to.
Side note, if you’re not currently connected to a local storehouse, ask the Holy Spirit where He would like you to sow and He will show you the best soil for your seed.
The reason my family joyfully give our first fruits (tithe) to Kingdom Hope is because by doing so, we are enabling our tithe to be supernaturally blessed. If we were to give first to booking a holiday, paying the bills or taking the family out to dinner, we would be giving our money to something that cannot supernaturally bless it. The principle of first shows God that we are willing to surrender back to Him what is His and invite his almighty hand to supernaturally bless our finances so we can in turn bless our family and those around us.
The second key takeaway highlights how God exampled the principle of first to us. You see, He knew that the clean had to be sacrificed so that the unclean could be redeemed. Therefore God tithed His son Jesus. This is why Jesus is referred to as the firstborn and He rose from the dead on the feast of the first fruits.
What’s so unique about this, is God tithed His son long before we were right with Him. He tithed His son whilst we were sinners. Even still, God tithed His son when we were mocking him, spitting on him and nailing him to a cross. And finally, God tithed His son before you and I even decided to give our lives to Him. Unfortunately, far to many times in my life I’ve reverse-engineered this process. I’ve decided that I will bring my tithe only once He turns things around in my world. Once I’ve got a little more money left over, then I will tithe.
Can you imagine God took this approach though? That He decided to tithe Jesus only once we decided to surrender our lives to Him and turn away from our sinful nature. I can imagine it would’ve been a very long wait for God if He decided this approach but fortunately, His approach aligns with the principle of first. Whereby, He tithed first, long before we decided to follow Him.
I believe He is calling us to do the same. To tithe before we see the blessing knowing that His promises are true and that He exampled this to us in such a way that we cannot outdo Him.
Key question:
Does the place I’m currently giving my first fruits to, have the ability to supernaturally bless my family?
Key resources:
Youtube – The Principle of First – Life Church
Key Scriptures:
For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters.
But in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. He is the first of a great harvest of all who have died.
