LIFE SCRIPTS

28 “You shall not revile God, nor curse a ruler of your people. 29 “You shall not delay to offer the first of your ripe produce and your juices. The firstborn of your sons you shall give to Me. 30 Likewise you shall do with your oxen and your sheep. It shall be with its mother seven days; on the eighth day you shall give it to Me. 31 “And you shall be holy men to Me: you shall not eat meat torn by beasts in the field; you shall throw it to the dogs.
Exodus 22:28‭-‬31 NKJV

https://bible.com/bible/114/exo.22.28-31.NKJV.

God expects nothing less than worship from us. He expects us to honor the rulers He’s placed over us. Many times especially during crisis, we’re tempted to revile God…question Him. But this is His call to us: even when things don’t make sense, we should still honor Him and the leaders He’s placed over us. This honor should go beyond mere words to even encompass a discipline of giving of our first fruits. In fact verse 29 talks precisely about ‘not delaying’ our first fruits. The verses which follow talk about the dedication of the first born both in families and among livestock to God. I recall times when I literally delayed paying my tithe. Those were the times I rarely gave to God. Our giving to God must come first. It mustn’t be secondary. But it’s interesting to note that God required all these gifts then yet hadn’t appointed priests and Levites to oversee the temple ministry which was to come. Even when the Levitical order was established, the priests were to eat from the meat offered by the people as an offering to God. This was meant to create equality among God’s people because Levites had no property they could call their own. They had been set aside as chief ministers in God’s temple. Fast forward today and we have a unique situation of pastors struggling to put food on their tables on one extreme and those who thrive in opulence on the other extreme with the rest lying within the continuum. God desires giving as a form of worship but also as a pathway towards equality. This passage might not allude to who handled the gifts on His behalf but is clear that everyone was to do what had been prescribed…no one was an exception.