Proverbs 3:9-10: Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops; then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine.
To begin the year I want to examine verses from the book of Proverbs that deal with money. The Bible is replete with teaching about money and wealth. The Bible reveals God's will to bless his children and to meet their every need. The Bible also reveals warnings from God about the love of money. In Matthew 6:24 Jesus teaches that a man cannot serve two masters. He said, You cannot serve both God and money.
The Biblical pattern is to serve God and to make money serve us.
In Proverbs 3 the writer instructs us to honor God with our wealth. Then he gives a specific way to honor God with the instruction to give of the firstfruits of our crops.
This book was written originally to an agricultural society. But today the concept is the same. We honor God with the firstfruits of our increase. The increase may come through a paycheck, a business deal, a gift, stock appreciation, or in numerous other ways.
Let's examine first the result of honoring God with our wealth. then your barns will be filled to overflowing, and your vats will brim over with new wine
Notice in particular the words overflowing and brim over. The writer speaks of the blessings of God in such abundance that a person has more than enough. To obey God with your wealth brings the overflowing blessings of God to you.
God desires abundance in every realm of your life including finances. Heaven is a place of abundance. The Garden of Eden was a place of abundance. And even in the midst of this broken world, God desires to bring his overflowing abundance to his covenant children.
In my life I have not pleased God. I have not tapped into the overflow of his blessing like he wants me to. I have purposed to change. I have purposed to learn to walk in his abundance.
There are two key reasons to learn to walk in the oveflow of God's abundance. First of all, we need to please God by accepting all that his covenant provides. Secondly, it takes money to finance the promulgation of the gospel. We should walk in God's Biblical prosperity, so we can give liberally to the work of the gospel.
If we dare to believe, there is no limit to what God can do in us and through us.
So God wants us to give of the firstfruits of our increase. There is a passage in Malachi that sheds more light on giving the firstfruits.
'Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,' says the Lord Almighty, 'and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that you will not have room enough for it.'
A tithe is 10%. To tithe is to give 10% of your increase to God and his work. To some this is too radical and ridiculous. To others it is a way of life.
Look at the mighty blessing that God gives the tither. He will throw open the floodgates of heaven and bless you so much, that you won't have room for all of it. In the next verse he talks about rebuking the one who devours. The tithe helps to shut the door to Satan.
What a deal!!
2001 is a year to honor God. Let's learn to honor him with our wealth, and with the tithe of our increase, and then let's expect God to honor his word. Then let's learn to give more and more and more to the work of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Chrst.
Wayne L. Williams
wayne@fotwm.org