ASLC Devotions - Tuesday

Proverbs 3:9 Honour the Lord with your substance
   and with the first fruits of all your produce;

The call from the Bible for the life of people of faith has always been to offer the first fruits of our produce to God. Of course, this call is based in an agrarian culture. The idea was that after the harvest (of wheat, sheep, corn, whatever) the first things you harvested would be set aside for God's work. They would be given to the temple for the support of the priests directly or for sale and the proceeds to benefit the temple.

Not many farmers read these devotions. Some do, but not many. So what are the rest of us to do with our direct deposit paychecks? Here's how I think "first fruits thinking" applies in our time. The idea is to offer your best and to make offering to God a priority. This isn't supposed to be what's left over at the end of the week. It isn't supposed to be - I forgot to write a check and I have a sawbuck in my pocket. It should be the first thing we ponder in our budgets. Ponder it.

In Christ,
Pastor Seth

This devotional message is a ministry of All Saints Lutheran Church. Join us for worship this weekend. Beginning this weekend, we change to our summer worship schedule. Saturday night worship at 5 pm and Sunday morning at 9 am. Both with Holy Communion. This week only, "Blessing of Bicycles" Saturday night! Visit http://www.allsaintspalatine.org for full calendar and information and respond to this email message to request to be removed from our distribution list or to be added.