Firstfruits of all your increase

Firstfruits of all your increase

Honour the LORD with thy substance, and with the firstfruits of all thine increase:

So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine. (Pro.3:9-10)

Nowadays, we honour the Lord through our lips only. We worship and adore Him in our churches. We pray a long prayer like the Pharisee. But when it comes to honouring Him with our substance, we just turn a blind eye to the missionary organizations who appeal for funds. The Old Testament standard of giving is just one tenth of our increase. But under the New Covenant, there is no limit to our giving. We have to give beyond our ability until it affects us. We want to receive everything free from our Lord. We want free email devotionals to be sent to our Inboxes. At times, when we receive some email devotionals freely in our Inbox, we immediately react violently and we send an impolite reply saying, "Unsubscribe". Why cannot we thank the servant of God who took pains to send us this message and then request him not to send you his message? We want free books. We want free Christian magazines to be delivered at our door steps. We want free CDs/VCDs. Of course, those who send us free have been blessed by God. But we are supposed to pay a price for what we learn from the elders in the Body of Christ who take pains to teach us.

Secondly, we have to honour Him not only with our substance but also with the firstfruits of all our increase. If you get a promotion in your career, the first salary should go to our Lord. If you get a job after the prayers of a servant of God, your first salary should go to the servant of God concerned. If you get a windfall profit in your business, the first profit money should go to the Lord. Today, the missionary organizations are not able to meet their budgets because the people of God are not giving sacrificially to them. The people of God do not give their firstfruits to the apostolic ministers who are the missionaries that serve God in places not reached by the gospel. God has set the apostles in the first place in His body, and the other ministers entrusted with miracles and healings, etc, in the secondary places (I Cor.12:28). We give more to the ministers who perform miracle and healing ministries but ignore the apostolic ministers in our midst who just lead a hand to mouth existence in mission fields. We just reverse the order set by God in the body of Christ.

Recently, I was invited to speak during the first anniversary of a Christian organization in Delhi which is engaged in translating the Bible into the scriptless languages of India. The missionary couple who do this wonderful ministry could not get their "salaries" fixed by the Trust of this organization for the last two months and they just struggled to buy a computer for their ministry which cost only Rs.16, 000/- (equivalent to $400). In fact this computer could be bought due to the precious gift sent by a dear sister in USA.

I have been receiving many prayer requests from the people of God all over the world about their financial problems. Many of them mentioned that they could not pay their mortgage loans/clear their electricity/cooking gas bills, etc. They want others to pray for "financial miracles". I say with all the assurance that their financial problems would vanish the moment they give a part of what they have in their pockets to the apostolic ministers in the universal Body of Christ. They would have sown "seeds" in the ministries of those who preached the "prosperity gospel". I exhort them to sow their seeds in the "good land" that gives them 100 fold yields (Matt.13:8). Let them give to God out of their penury to receive the great financial miracles. " So shall thy barns be filled with plenty, and thy presses shall burst out with new wine".

Long ago, I came across a wonderful testimony of a poor couple who gave to God out of their penury. Arul Jothy of J.D.Nagar, Sankarankoil, Tamil Nadu, India lives with her family in a house with asbestos sheet roof and with no proper door. They are supporters of Indian Missionary Society that is engaged in sending missionaries to those places in India which are not reached by the gospel of Christ. In India, there is a system of raising funds from the house-wives or the poor people. They are given offertory boxes in which these people put their coins in a sacrificial manner. They will never open these boxes even if they need money desperately. These boxes are handed over to the fund raisers after a particular period. In a similar manner, the Indian Missionary Society distributed offertory boxes known as "IMS Hundi" amongst their donors. When the staff of IMS went to the house of Arul Jothy to collect the money saved by her through her offertory box, she said, "Sir, the Hundi is overflowing and there is no more space to drop the coins." She also said, "All three of us, my husband, son and myself, never had any medical expense. If any becomes sick, we will put our offering in the Hundi and pray on our knees. Sickness will fly away." When the offertory box was opened, there was Rs.2675 (equivalent to $50). Today, many people of God suffer from various ailments and do not get healed because they do not honor God with the firstfruits of all their increase.

Dearly beloved in Christ, you need not send your prayer requests over the internet to many servants of God. Instead, give a part of what is in your hand to God today, especially, to the apostolic ministers whom God has set first in the body of Christ. Your barns shall be filled with plenty and your presses shall burst out with new wine. Elijah just wanted the widow at Zarephath who was gathering the sticks to feed him "with a morsel of bread in thine hand " (I Kings 17:11). He wanted only what she had in her house. She did not have much but only "an handful of meal in a barrel, and a little oil in a cruse". She told him in a plain language that she had this last meal in her house and that she and her son might "eat it and die". But she gave what she possessed. She made "a little cake" for Elijah. Then came the word of prophecy: "The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth" (I Kings 17:14). What happened to her? She and her house "did eat many days. And the barrel of meal wasted not, neither did the cruse of oil fail, according to the word of the Lord, which He spake by Elijah (I Kings. 7: 15-16). The word of prophecy, though it emanated from Elijah, was in fact the word of the Lord. Today also, the same word of prophecy comes to you from the God of Elijah! It is not my word but the word of the Lord.

Until and unless the Elijah is fed through your own hands, you cannot expect a financial miracle but only a deficit. Dear minister, you will have definitely "new wine" in your ministry if you feed the Elijah in the wilderness. God will definitely enlarge your tent in your nation if you have a willing heart to help the apostles in the body of Christ. Are you like the widow at Zarephath? The God of Elijah is here to bless you. You will have your barns filled with plenty, and your presses burst out with new wine. Is your bank balance "empty"? Has your debt mounted like anything? Give to God out of your penury today. The "new wine" for you may be divine healing for your body or a financial miracle or a new job with a very good pay package.

Next.....DESPISE NOT THE CHASTENING OF THE LORD