Today's Scripture
Leftovers – Deuteronomy 26:1-10
First Fruits and Tithes
When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, 2 you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name. 3 You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, “Today I declare to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.” 4 When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the Lord your God, 5 you shall make this response before the Lord your God: “A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. 6 When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labor on us, 7 we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 8 The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; 9 and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10 So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.” You shall set it down before the Lord your God and bow down before the Lord your God.
RJ's Devotion
What the passage says
V. 1-5 When the people of Israel entered in the Promise Land, they were to give the firstfruit and portion of their crop. Traditionally, it would have been the tithe.
V. 6-9 This offering was an act to remember God’s grace in their lives. How God called Abraham, and made his family a nation, through all they have experienced in Egypt and the Wilderness.
V. 10-11 The act of offering understood as a posture of surrendering.
What does the passage say to me/us?
An offering is what we bring to God.
We offer, not only our life, heart and time but also our money.
The act of offering is responding to the grace, with thanksgiving, that was poured out in our life. The grace of God is a ‘free gift.’ However, when we understand how great that grace is, it becomes a natural response for us to offer our lives since Christ laid down his life for the world.
We also need to remember that the act of offering is done in a posture of surrender. It says, “You shall set it down before the Lord your God and bow down before the Lord your God” (v. 11 NRSV). Through our offering, we surrender our lives to the Lord. There must have been many other things that the offering could have been used. However, a believer brings the first fruit to the Lord, by surrendering some other needs. And it is an act of surrendering that we practice. We need to remember our call to lay down our life, daily, for our Lord.
God demonstrated the greatest love by laying down his life for us. He also asks us to do the same. “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13 NRSV).
Our act of offering is a practice to be ready when God asks us to live out the Greatest Love.
Prayer
Lord, we are thankful for your grace. We are preparing our hearts to celebrate your grace on the day you won over death. We ask that we will be able to lay down our lives for others, knowing that is the proper response to your great love. Be with us.
In Christ, we pray, AMEN
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