Give The Firstfruits of Your Time To God
When my schedule is full, my social battery depleted, and my headspace frantic, my spiritual life often gets the remainder of what I have to offer instead of the firstfruits.
What are the firstfruits?
We see the term firstfruits all throughout the old and new testament of scripture.
“Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops.” —Proverbs 3:9
“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
These were, as the name implies, the first picked crops, the best you had to offer. Before you ate your fill of the harvest, you were to give back to God. This was to happen yearly at the festival of firstfruits within the passover period. It was to be a reminder to Israel, as you see in Leviticus 23:10 that God gave them the land, God gave them crops, and in giving back to God what He provided, we are reminded that God provides and God is faithful.
Counterintuitive
This is difficult isn’t it? I am good to offer things to God, to sacrifice. But my best? I want that for myself. I know that doesn’t sound overly godly, but I am just being honest.
Why, though, do I struggle to give back to God what was His in the first place? He has provided for me. He will be faithful to continue to supply my needs. God is never merely just after sacrifice for sacrifices sake. God doesn’t need my money, or my time, or my devotion. He is just fine without it. His resources are not dependent on me.
Rather, there is something in the process of giving and sacrificing that we need, especially us western Christians. We need it. It is good for our soul to wrestle with giving our best back to God. Why? Because it reveals idols, unearths where we do not trust God, and teaches us we are not self-sufficient.
Do you want to know if something is an idol? Try to give it up. If any strands of your heart continue to hold onto it, like velcro hanging on, you might have found one.
In our God given affluence and riches, in our ease and comfort, our hearts are more greedy than we know. Our culture has produced in us a subtle self-sufficiency, like a predator in murky water, we cannot see it. But it is there.
God Challenged me
My spiritual life has felt different lately. I am having to learn new rhythms and ways of being with God now that my season of life has changed. In my prayer time yesterday I began to talk to God about the fact that He has felt far. I began to reflect and ask God to guide me in growing in this area, I want more of God. I want to be near to Him.
Scriptures related to offerings and sacrifices came to mind. I started to think, what of myself and of my time do I offer to God? Mostly, what is left, which is not much. I know there are certain seasons of life where a few minutes here and there is honestly what we have, and in those seasons we should not feel guilty for giving what seems “meager” to God. Do you remember Jesus’ story about the poor woman giving a few cents to God?
when he saw a poor widow put in two pennies. He said, “The plain truth is that this widow has given by far the largest offering today. All these others made offerings that they'll never miss; she gave extravagantly what she couldn't afford—she gave her all!” Luke 21:1-4 The Message
The question of our giving is never of quantity and always of heart. I have been giving “two pennies” of my time when it comes to seeking God, even though I have thousands. I have been giving God out of the remainder of what I have, not the beginning of my time. When I get home from work I am so quick to watch tv, get on social media, play video games, workout, spend time with my wife. None of these things are bad, and I don’t even think I do them in bad proportions.
What is the problem? I try to give God my time after all of those things and that usually means I give God a tired, spent, ready for bed heart. What could it look like for me to give God my firstfruits of my time?
My wife and I have started (imperfectly) trying to give God our firstfruits of time. Right when we get home, before we do anything else, we attempt to spend time with Him.
A qualifier
I want to remind you that we are not to do the spiritual disciplines to earn God’s love. We cannot evoke the love of God, it is already present and placed upon us because of what Jesus Christ has done (Romans 8:1). The reason we want to be disciplined in these avenues of fellowship with God is because of God’s love for us. We want to know Him more, we want to seek Him, we want to love Him more and more and more. We cannot do that if we are not with Him.
It is one thing to read your bible to earn God’s love and blessing, it is quite another to do those things because of God’s love and blessing.
Trying to love God more one evening at a time,
Josh.
