First Fruits

I agree with authors Michael Rhodes and Robby Holt when they urge us to honor Jesus in how we work, earn, spend, save and give…

The tomatoes caught me off guard. Sitting in a small Anglican church in Kenya, I was prepared for the invitation to put some money in the offering plate. I was not prepared for tomatoes.

But that’s what the members of that farming village brought. Tomatoes, avocadoes, maybe even a chicken or two, all brought up and placed on the altar. They brought the literal first fruits of their small fields, the work of their hands given back to God in gratitude for his blessing on farm and farmer alike.

I wonder how different our lives would be if our economic practices…our spending, our giving…begins on an altar covered with tomatoes, with worship that orients all of who we are toward the God who so loved the world that He gave. Would we become more generous, more loving, truly free?

What if we stewarded the first fruits of our gifts and talents and skills similarly? How might this type of thinking change the way we study, work or spend? How might such generous stewardship change our university and nation? How might those around us be impacted as we offer them our very best, doing so as an offering to God?