It is the time for remembering the early first fruits
harvest. Not the wheat harvest that happens around the time of
Pentecost, but the first crop of the year that happens around the time of
Passover during the Feast of Unleavened Bread; in Israel the main harvest at this time of the year would have been the barley harvest.
In 2015 Passover happens at sunset on April 3rd and continues over the next seven days with the Feast of Unleavened Bread. The day of First Fruits is also celebrated during this week. This is the day I am featuring in this article.
Now is the time to prepare our hearts and to plan a nice Seder meal, for inviting family and close friends to join in with your household in joyful and thankful celebration.
It is nice to prepare a very festive meal for this day while we remember the
story of the early harvest and the waiving of the barley loaf and the significance this holds for us in realizing the Resurrection of Christ. We are also to prepare for the counting of the
Omer – the fifty days leading up to Pentecost.
In this season the words to one particular song
ring out like a prayer for me. It is a prayer about offering up the fruit of our lives to
God. During the creation week God had six days in which He did His work of creating the world. We too, should be spending six days in every week to complete the work that God has blessed us with. We all have a purpose, our work as people in God's Kingdom living on earth is to fulfill that purpose. What purpose has God whispered in your ear? Are you to be a witness to others, a good wife, a good husband, a good mother or father? Are you called to be single and to help other singles who are facing struggles? Are you called to bring hospitality when needed, to help those who are less fortunate, to help out with financial needs, to offer your labor of love in some type of physical work that shows the love of God? God calls each of us to different individual purposes. This is our work on earth. It could be teaching, or serving others, or taking care of the elderly. Each person will be called to something with purpose and meaning to the Kingdom of God. The days of our lives spent fulfilling that purpose are our way of thanking God for creating us and letting us live out and be a part of His plan. Here are a few of the lyrics to a song expressing this very fact. I must give Don Meon and
Hillsong credit for the lyric writing and singing:
All that I am, all that I have,
I lay them down before you O Lord.
All my regrets, all my acclaim,
The joy and the pain, I’m making them yours.
Lord I offer my life to You, everything I’ve been
through
Use it for Your glory.
Lord I offer my days to You,
Lifting my praise to You as a pleasing sacrifice,
Lord I offer You my life.
This beautiful
song and the lyrics that I love immediately send my soul searching out the
meaning of true sacrifice, the best of the best, the early crop that is offered
to God at the first harvest of first fruits. It is a joyful time, full of the
symbols of Resurrection.
By the Day of First Fruits the ancient people of God would have already removed
the leaven from their homes, and celebrated the Passover. They fully
knew that removing the leaven symbolized the removal of sin from their lives. By the time of the first physical harvest the leaven
would be out of their homes, but more importantly, their sins would be confessed before
God. What good is sacrifice without a confession first? Without confession, there would hardly be a point, it would all be meaningless ritual. They fully understood the importance of the act of
repentance. They knew along with repentance came the need for a sacrifice. They
brought the first and best of their barley harvest to the priest on the day
after the Sabbath of the Passover, the day of Early First Fruits.
We too come before our High Priest, Jesus
Christ who now stands at the right hand of God and offers up the best and the first of
our spiritual harvest and waves it before God for us each year. We dare not come
before spending time in repentance. We know we can’t do this by
ourselves. We need Jesus to accomplish this for us. So in the time
leading up to Passover; when I’m cleaning all the leaven out of my house and
thinking of the best I have to offer to the Lord; I’m confessing
sins that God brings to mind as I do the work. I sweep out the
crumbs and crumbs of un-confessed sins that flash before me. I’m reminded
to confess and I do. If I’m going to bring of the best of my life it
must be holy, perfect, unblemished. Jesus has made this
possible. It is His sacrifice that makes my offering acceptable. The early people had to bring a physical
sacrifice. Jesus has now fulfilled this act by becoming the physical
sacrifice, once for all. He asks us to remember this, and we do in
the appointed time for each season. All we need to bring now is the offering of our lives. Because of the sacrifice of His life, the offering of our lives will now be acceptable.
The sacrificial offering of Early First Fruits has
been required since the very beginning, right after the days that Adam and Eve
first sinned. Once they sinned, God began to talk to them and
instruct them about the appointed times for making
sacrifices.
It isn’t exactly spelled out, but if you read and study
the Old Testament scriptures you will begin to realize that Adam and Eve must
have passed down God’s instructions to their children. This becomes very
clear as the story of Cain and Able unfolds.
In those days, when it was time for the early First
Fruits offering, Cain and Abel showed up at the appointed place and appointed
time, as well as Adam and Eve and all the rest of their children. Adam
and Eve had been taught directly by God. They in turn had instructed
their children that God wanted the best and the first fruits of their
labor. As you read the story it becomes apparent that Adam and Eve
had taught their sons that God looks on the attitude of the giver and if the
intent of the heart is right, He accepts the sacrifice. When God accepted
the sacrifice it was consumed by divine fire.
If the intent of the heart was wrong the sacrifice
would not be accepted, and it would not be consumed but would remain on the
altar until someone moved it away.
One day the appointed time came and the family of Adam
and Eve gathered to offer their first fruits before the Lord. Abel
brought the first and the best of his herd. They were without spot
or blemish. The best. The lord was pleased and Abel’s
offering was consumed by the divine fire.
Then Cain brought the first of his labor, vegetables
from where he had tilled the ground. Only; Cain had eaten the first
and the best of the vegetables and fruit himself. He brought the
Lord the leftovers, the ones that he did not want. They were
withered and blemished. God saw that Cain was selfish with his
offering. God did not consume the sacrifice.
Cain became angry and he was jealous of his brother
who had pleased God. Eventually Cain’s hatred for his brother Abel
became so great that he killed him and hid his body thinking that no one would
ever know what he had done.
The appointed time came again and Cain showed up at
the appointed place with his offering of vegetables and the stain of his brother's blood in his heart. Abel did not
show up. God asked Cain, in front of everyone where Abel was. Cain
lied and said that he did not know. But God KNEW the truth, and He
told Cain his own story, and everyone there heard from God that Cain had killed
his brother.
Cain never repented. Cain only got angry.
Adam and Eve must have been devastated. God
rejected Cain’s offering and cursed him. Cain was cast out of the
land, never to come before God again. Because of Cain’s selfishness
he lost his soul, his family and his home.
Cain’s children grew up to be wicked and evil. The
curse of their father followed them wherever they went. This was a
case where the wrong attitude about firstfruits made for a very sad
story. Cain’s family began the curse on the earth of many more evil and
wicked generations. Their generations after them caused the world to
be so evil that God sent a flood to destroy the earth. Only Noah and
his family were saved.
What do you think was the first thing that Noah and
his family did when the ark landed safely right on the day of Early Firstfruits
in the appointed place at the appointed time?
They were very thankful to God for saving them, so they built an altar and made an offering to the
Lord. With the whole world washed away, what do you think were the
firstfruits of their labor?
It was the gift of themselves; their very lives. The
whole family of Noah and the animals with them would be bringing new life to
the world. It was the gift of life that they brought; the best gift of all.
God consumed their sacrifice by divine fire because the animals that they offered represented the fact that they wanted to live for God. They had brought themselves; their food, their energy, their time, all that they had to offer, to help God start the world all
over again. It was an acceptable offering and God not only accepted
it; He gave them the promise of the rainbow.
Noah’s children
taught their children about early first fruits until the days of Abram came.
Abram went into a fierce battle of many kings in the land. The King of Sodom where Abram's nephew Lot was residing had not been able to defend his own city. With the help of God, Abram defeated several other powerful kings that had come against the city and taken plunder from Abram's nephew, as well as the King and the other residents. On his way back from battle Abram was met in the valley by
Melchizedek, the King of Jerusalem and the High Priest of God.
Abram
recognized that Melchizedek was the High Priest of God, and he gave Him an
offering to God of the best from all of his own possessions. This was his first fruits offering. Abram
could have given the spoils from the war that he had regained from the kings who had attacked and plundered the city of Sodom, but Abram returned those
spoils to the King of Sodom. Abram chose not to use them as an offering to God. Besides the fact that many of these things probably represented evil in some way, Abram wanted everyone to know that God had given him his blessings, and that he had
not gained any of them from a battle with the King of Sodom. Instead of the spoils of war, Abram gave from all of his own finest and most treasured possessions. God was pleased with Abram’s offering. It was accepted. Afterwards Melchizedek blessed Abram and they shared a meal of bread and wine.
Unlike the sacrifices of Cain, the first fruits of
Noah and Abram were accepted before God.
Abram taught his descendants about the first fruits offering. He explained that when you bring a first fruit offering to God it should be something from the best that you have to offer.
Abram, who later became Abraham, taught his children
to make the offerings to God at the appointed times and the appointed
place. God blessed Abraham’s descendants and made a nation from
them. Sarah gave Abraham a son named Isaac. Isaac married
Rebecca and they had twin sons named Jacob and Esau.
And so, we could go on and on with the stories of the
children of Israel and how they all brought early first fruit offerings before
God in one way or another, and how their offerings were either accepted or
rejected by God.
In the days of Moses, as the people were leaving
slavery and God was speaking to them of how to be His nation, He gave them
further instructions. Let’s look at what God asked on this day so
long ago when He met Moses on the mountain.
The passage is found in Leviticus 23:10-12:
Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them,
When ye be come into the land which I give unto you, and shall reap the harvest
thereof, then ye shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest unto
the priest; and he shall wave the sheaf before the LORD, to be accepted for
you: on the morrow after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. And
ye shall offer that day when ye wave the sheaf a he lamb without blemish of the
first year for a burnt offering unto the LORD.
They were to bring an offering (which represented the first of the profit of their labor) and they were to make a sacrifice (an unblemished lamb.) This was God’s requirement for the early first fruits
offering from when Israel first entered the Promised Land.
So we see a further picture of the people from many
generations coming every year to their first harvest of the year. It
was usually a barley crop. Barley was hardy and grew almost
anywhere. It survived well, struggling for life and abundance even
in hard times and rough weather. Barley bread was known as “the
common people’s bread.” It was called “the bread of the poor”
because it was more affordable and easier to grow and buy than the wheat that
was produced later in the year. There was not much excuse for not having a barley crop, it was easy to grow and available in abundance. If you could not afford your own field, you could reap the corners of other people's fields that were left for the poor and those who had nothing. This is how Ruth took care of Noami before she married Boaz, her beloved kinsman redeemer. Even the poor could produce a crop from the barley if they made the effort to do so. They did not even have to plant or grow, all they were required to do was to reap.
There were five loaves of barley bread found in
the young boy’s lunch that day which were given to
Jesus to use to feed the multitude. Jesus
took it, blessed it, broke it and multiplied it out until there was plenty enough for
everyone. Had the boy not brought the lunch first however, there would have been nothing. Because the boy offered all that he had, even though it was common and ordinary, a multitude was able to eat and be satisfied that day. They were able to stay and obtain the food from which you never grow hungry again, the spiritual food being offered by The Messiah. How significant can the picture be of man offering up
barley, the lesser of the crops, the easier of the crops, the least expensive
of the crops, much like the offering of Cain. Man’s offerings alone though could
never be good enough. Only when Jesus came into the picture as the perfect sacrifice could
this change in the eyes of God. There were years and years of barley
harvests presented before God. Mankind needed a Messiah to come in order to make these offerings acceptable.
Year after year the first of every crop (usually
barley) was brought to the Temple. The very first bundle of grain
they gathered would be taken to the High Priest. The priest would
wave the sheaf before the Lord. This happened after the Sabbath of
the Passover during the seven day Feast of Unleavened Bread. This
was the day of the bringing of the wave sheaf that was to be offered to God
before anyone offered or used anything else that God had blessed them with from
the harvest.
We now know, unlike the Israelites who had to be
obedient through totally blind faith, that Jesus Christ was the true One that
would make these wave sheaf offerings acceptable before God. The timing of this
first fruit ritual offering established by God way before Christ came to earth,
was perfectly in line and a shadow of the actions of Christ before, during and
after the Resurrection. Like the seed that grows into the plant that is harvested and processed to make fine bread, Christ was put into the ground and covered up, or buried. Like the little seed that receives power from God on High as it grows and shoots up through the dirt, Jesus received resurrection power from God and rose from the grave. He is the one who offers our prayers before God. He is our High Priest waiving our offering before God. God will always accept us, because He is perfect! He became our acceptable first fruit
offering of the harvest of spiritual souls for the Kingdom of God. He
and those who rose with Him at the Resurrection were the Early First Fruits of
the harvest of souls that belong to God.
It is said that you must give the wave sheaf in order
to make the rest of the crop acceptable for use. When Jesus
presented Himself, holy and pure, before God as our offering, God accepted Him
and that made us (the rest of the crop) acceptable for use in God’s Kingdom
also.
So, we are not agricultural anymore, and Christ has
come for us now and saved us from our sins.
There is no Temple in Jerusalem anymore.
Does this mean we forget these days?
Not at all; this only means that these days have an
even fuller meaning than before. We have even more to be thankful
for and to honor God for on this day. Now we have the fuller
celebration that incorporates the true essence of Resurrection. A
little like the family of Noah after the flood, we have new life!
We must do like the generations before us and teach
our children to teach their children to observe the appointed times for
bringing their first fruits before God as a sacrifice that is acceptable.
So it is good to pause and think about the ancient
people and their spirit of worship during the time of First Fruits.
What was the true heart of the ancient people as they
brought these offerings?
The giving of the first fruits is a reminder that
everything we have is God’s. It all comes to us from Him. Even the breath that we breathe, the water that we drink, the song on our lips, they all originate from Him.
The giving of first fruits does NOT mean: This
is God’s and the rest is mine.
The giving of the first fruits means that I give to God to be used of God and the rest that I have is meant to be used for a lifestyle
that glorifies Him.
Making God a first priority in our life pleases Him.
It fills Him with pleasure. It is His
delight and desire. It is God’s will that we make Him a priority in
our lives, that is what is meant by verses 11 – 13 of the earlier passage we
read in Leviticus 23. This says: “to be accepted for you.” God
goes to great lengths to describe the offering that is to be given. The
purpose for this offering is that it would be acceptable to God on behalf of
the nation. One of the reasons it is acceptable is the fact that you have made God your first priority in bringing the offering before Him.
There are two parts to being acceptable before
God. The first involves the perfect sacrifice of Christ.
He was obedient in all things, even to the death of
the cross. Through His death He made it possible for us to become
acceptable to God in that through His death we receive His righteousness when
we put our trust in Christ as the only way of salvation. In that
way, we become heirs of righteousness with Christ Jesus. We become
acceptable before God in Him, Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God Who takes away the
sin of the world.
HE IS RISEN! PRAISE GOD!!!!!!!
The second part of being acceptable before God
involves living consistent with the commitment that is made through the offering. This was true in the Old Testament days, and it is still true
today.
Obedience in this offering and other ritual offerings
was demanded and commanded but not just in the ritual of the offering, it was designed to play out in every and all areas of one's life.
Obedience is demanded.
When it comes down to the facts, there was really only
one thing necessary in the Old Testament for an offering to be acceptable to God; obedience.
That is why in Jeremiah 6:20 and Malachi 2:13 God
refused the offering of the people, because they were disobedient before
God. They apparently thought since they obeyed the ritual law they would
be able to get God to look the other way during their everyday lives. Sound
familiar?
Please let this never be true of any of us.
Let us instead come before God as obedient servants bringing Him the first
fruits of our labor. It doesn’t have to be money, or material
things. It can be whatever you have to offer before God of your
best; prayer, devotion, study, the gift of time, something that you do for others that makes the world see God's love, any of the giving of other less tangible
resources in some way; but what ever it is, your gift to God should be in keeping
with the fact that you are bringing to God your first and your best offering from
the days of your life that has now been redeemed by the blood of Christ.
God will look on the intent of your heart. God
will see the blood of Jesus that covers you, and you will be acceptable to Him.
We find this concept of Early First Fruits in the New
Testament also.
Paul begged the Roman believers on the basis of the
mercy of God shown to them through the death of Christ that they would present
their bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which was their
reasonable service, not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed by
the renewing of their mind that they might prove what is that good and
acceptable and perfect will of God.
Romans 14:17-19 describes more exactly what this type of life that is acceptable before God looks like. It is not arguing over
what we should eat and drink, but rather righteousness and peace and joy,
specifically, Paul is emphasizing peace between believers in Christ.
Do you need to bring a peace offering of your first
and best to God?
2 Corinthians 5:9-10 teaches that whether our service
is acceptable or not before God is the basis whereby believers will be judged. Believers are no longer condemned to die or suffer in eternity, because they are covered with the perfect blood of Christ and forgiven for their sins; but they ARE judged in order to evaluate which gifts they will receive as rewards for their earthly lives in Heaven. They can never be sentenced to hell, because they are saved; but they will receive greater or lesser rewards in heaven based on the records of the judgement of how they lived their life on earth. This is a very hard pill for some believers to swallow. It does not cancel grace, grace is available from God in abundance. It does not cancel salvation, it just means that some will be rewarded more than others. All I can tell you is go back and study the scriptures! Kind of scary isn't it? Will your house be made of hay and stubble or gold and silver? I fear I may be living with many good neighbors surrounding me in a straw house! I would rather live in a house made of hay or stubble and be with The LORD than live in one of gold or silver without Him! We will all still be very blessed and happy! Also keep in mind that God only judges by what we have been given. If you have used whatever God has given you for The Kingdom of God your reward will be as much as someone who had done a million more things than you but did not use all that God gave them! Read the parable of the talents.
The symbolism and ritual of First Fruits keeps us focused with these things in mind. Living in the world will only serve to keep you distracted from this truth. The symbolism is individualized through the denying of
one’s self. When we are able to die to ourselves, we learn how to live for God. The giving of the first fruits offerings served as a reminder
against falling into an idolatry of the heart where we let ourselves take on more masters than the One True God of Heaven and Earth. It protects us from the idolatry of self-righteousness. Many of the things that we do or
should do in bringing the best of ourselves to God serve as a guard against the ungodliness that is constantly lurking
around in our hearts. In many ways the ritual of First Fruits works like a shield over your heart.
In the early days of the Feasts of First Fruits the
people had been laboring since the end of October or beginning of November when
they first planted their barley. They had watched it sprout up out
of the ground, grow tall, and fill out with grain. But they could
not eat of it until the firstfruits were given to God.
Part of giving to God involves the understanding that
you must deny yourself. To deny yourself does not mean to deny your
existence. That would be foolishness. Nor does it mean that you
give up some pleasure or sin for the sake of Christ. No act that we could ever do would even come close to improving or helping Him. It is
simply the same thing as what is symbolized by not eating leavened bread during
the 7 Days of Unleavened Bread. It means that your needs, your
wants, your desires take a back seat to what God commands. The
message is both to the community and to the individual.
Obedience
does not mean giving God something so that you can enjoy the rest without fear
of punishment. Obedience means a denial of your importance in
relation to the things of Christ.
Will you deny yourself and follow Christ? He is waiting right now on your heart to turn toward Him. He stands with open arms.
Will you make Him THE priority, not A priority? Jesus
Christ should always be THE priority in your life. If you can make this decision you will always be
bringing Him the first fruits of your own spiritual harvest.
Yes, it
is good and sometimes even best to give offerings of money, but the money does not matter if the soul
is not right before God. James 1:18 says: He chose to give us birth
through the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of all He
created.
Now we must discuss further the greatest offering of
Early First Fruits that was ever given.
1 Corinthians 15:20 - 23 is the scripture which will guide
us on to see how the Festival of First Fruits is totally fulfilled in Christ. It
tells us that Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruit of those
who have fallen asleep. Christ the first fruits,
then at His coming those who belong to Christ.
First fruits is all about Resurrection! It is all about the Resurrection of Christ!
Jesus’ resurrection from the dead is the promise that
believers, too, will receive bodies in the final harvest that will never again
die. Had Jesus not been raised from the dead, there would be no guarantee
for believers to point to and rely upon when they think about the final day of the time of this earth that the scriptures point toward. But, as it is, the first fruit
resurrection of Christ guarantees that there will be a final harvest of bodies
that will be raised from the dead in similar manner to that of Christ.
Both Romans 8:23 and Ephesians 1:13-14 speak of
this…we…who have the first fruit of the Spirit…Who is the guarantee of our
inheritance…
The Holy Spirit that believers have received is the
assurance that the future inheritance, that final harvest promise, will be laid
hold of and reaped one day. We will be thinking more about this in 50 days
at the time of Pentecost. For now we must believe, prepare and wait
for those days to pass. That is another thing that we will begin in
this season of Resurrection. We will begin to count the Omer, the 50
days leading up to Pentecost, which is the day of the Latter First
Fruits. In these days of the counting of the Omer God will teach us
the blessings that come from Resurrection.
Let’s read the scripture that gives us instructions on
this observance:
(Numbers 15:17-21)
When you enter the land where I bring you, there it
shall be that when you eat of the bread of the land, you shall lift up a heave
offering to the Lord. Of the first of your dough you shall lift up a
cake as a heave offering; as the heave offering of the threshing floor, so you
shall lift it up. From the first of your dough you shall give to the
Lord a heave offering through your generations.
The dough that was “lifted up” to God made holy the
entire lump of dough that it was taken from.
In the days of the Temple, when the sacrificial system
took place, the first fruit offerings were given to the Levites and they became
their property (Numbers 18:12.) After its destruction when no
sacrificial system existed any more, the women of the house would throw a handful of the
dough into the fire as the first fruit offering to the Lord so that the rest of
the dough became holy unto Him. In every kitchen therefore, the hearth
became an altar to YHWH.
Commenting on this passage, the apostle Paul writes in
Romans 11:16: “If the dough offered as first fruit is holy, so is
the whole lump.”
As the Bride of Christ the true Church will one day be joined to Him. Since Jesus gave His Holy Life for us, so too are we
made holy before God.
And how do we KNOW He was holy? The proof
is in the Resurrection! He is Risen!
So on the celebration of Early First Fruits that falls
during the 7 days of Unleavened Bread following Passover, we mark our calendars
as we say the prayer for the Omer. This prayer of the Omer should be said every
day until the count reaches 50 and we find ourselves at the day of
Pentecost.
Here is the prayer we will pray at our table:
BLESSED ARE YOU, LORD OUR GOD, KING OF THE UNIVERSE,
WHO HAS SANCTIFIED US WITH YOUR COMMANDMENTS AND COMMANDED US CONCERNING THE
COUNTING OF THE OMER. TODAY IS THE (insert the number of the day here) DAY OF THE OMER.
Counting the Omer each of the days leading up to
Pentecost in this manner gets us excited about what God is going to do with our
first fruits offering by the time we reach the Day of Pentecost.
So basically when we celebrate the day of Early First
Fruits we are recognizing that we need to lift our lives up to God, giving
ourselves to God for His use. This is symbolized by the physical act
of the heave offering. This offering only works for us now because
of the sacrificial love of Jesus. Because He offered Himself up on
the cross we are able to live free from the bondage of sin. Joining
in with His spirit of sacrificial giving and offering our own first fruits
causes a follower of Jesus to sanctify (make holy or set apart) each situation
that we are a part of in our daily life, bringing the Kingdom to bear on every
level of our society. In this act of love we find Resurrection to
new life! Jesus was the first, and in our time; the Bride of Christ,
the Church.
It isn’t just that figurative language is being used
to speak of Jesus’ resurrection, but that the Resurrection
actually took place on the exact same day that the festival of first
fruits was commanded to be waved before God in the Temple. New life
has happened. Just like the seed of barley that fell into the earth
and brought forth a sheaf, so the seed of Christ’s body was sown in the earth
and brought forth new life as it was raised in power.
May God bless each and every one of you and may He
honor and accept the offerings of the first fruits of your lives before
Him.
Remember….
CHRIST IF RISEN!!!!!!!
HE IS RISEN INDEED!!!!!!!!!
CELEBRATE THE RESURRECTION!!!!!!!
