Read Exodus 13:11-16
Christmas has past. Our checkbooks are empty and our credit cards are smoldering. Our budgets are blown. If your house is like mine, there is Christmas wrapping paper scattered across the floor, gifts opened and left forlornly under the tree, and too many old leftovers in the fridge. The sad truth is that the holy day of Christmas often becomes the holiday of waste and overindulgence.
In this passage of Exodus, we are told about God’s command to the Israelites to consecrate the first born of their livestock and their children to the Lord in gratitude to their rescue from slavery in Egypt. My instinct is to object – I’ll gladly give whatever is leftover to the Lord, but to give him the “first fruits” is to run the risk that I will run short. Me first, then God.
And yet…
I, too, have been rescued from slavery. I have been freed from the burden of sin and guilt by the death of God’s first and only son. I have been brought into freedom and joy by His sacrifice.
God asks for the first fruits. He doesn’t need the sheep or the donkey. He loves the first born child, but he doesn’t ask for his or her consecration out of selfish reasons. What God really wants from us is that we would finally recognize our freedom – that we have been freed from the chains of this world. He wants us to realize that we live in His kingdom, and that our world is now one of abundant blessings, rather than scarcity.
God asks us to sacrifice our selfishness and fear. He asks us to let go of all of those things that blind us to the truth. He yearns for us to trust him enough to open our hands to receive the gift of grace.
Anonymous
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