The offering of firstfruits and tithes is the festival we
know today as Pentecost. The produce of
the land was an opportunity to celebrate the goodness of God who had not only
fulfilled the promise to give them the Land but also that the Land had produced
abundance as He had promised it would.
They were to bring a bundle of those things that the Lord had
particularly promised would be found in the Land and then they told the story
of God's goodness going back to Jacob whom the Lord renamed Israel. The story was meant to remind them that it
was not their effort that produced this bounty but the Lord's blessing in
giving them the Land and making it productive.
This all goes back to Cain and his attitude towards his sacrifice. All we have comes from Him and the failure to
make such sacrifice says to Him that you do not appreciate that reality. It is a dangerous road.
The Pharisee thought highly of himself for what he did and
because he was better than the tax collector.
What we do for God, fasting, praying, studying, even tithing, is not
righteousness if our hearts aren't right.
Cain made the first sacrifice, it was his idea but there was something
wrong in his heart, I would suggest that he made the sacrifice to entice the
Lord to continue to do whatever He had done that allowed Cain to enjoy the
product of his labors. His desire was
for more stuff, not in grateful recognition that without God nothing was
possible. The Pharisee expresses that
what he has done for God is more important than what God has done for him. The tax collector pleads no righteousness,
only sin. Jesus says that
self-justification is no justification at all.
Worship is all about recognizing our dependence on Him in all things, beginning
with salvation. We have a liturgy to
ensure that we at least get the story straight.
Paul's admonition is to generous giving. He is sending Titus and the brother who is
famous for preaching the Gospel and his desire is that the Corinthians should
prove themselves to be the people Paul has said that they are. What can be said of you with respect to
generosity? It is a measure of our
thankfulness how we think about money and possessions. If we stint on giving to the church or other
appeals, it reveals fear or something else, that we believe what we have to be
from our effort not God's blessing. Do
we give joyfully or with fear and a begrudging spirit?
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