First Fruits and Marriage

Hello Friends,

We hope you are having a great year so far! We are excited to see what the Lord has in store for 2020. We are believing for some big things as far as marriage is concerned but we know we serve a God that is fully capable of doing more than we can even ask or imagine! (Ephesians 3:20) If you are reading this we are believing you want to honor God with not only your life but your marriage as well! The topic we are talking about tonight is so very important to marriage but unfortunately, it is not a topic that is widely taught. We want to change that… so let’s get started.

First Fruits

The church Alex and I go to always starts off the new year with a First Fruits fast and offering. We do this every January. We spent 21 days fasting and praying and then we bring a special offering to the Lord. It is our way of giving God the first part of our year. Before I started attending the church, I had never heard of First Fruits so I had no idea what it was or why it was important to me. You may already have learned about it but for this blog, I am just going to assume that the majority of people are like I was and have no idea what it is. Let’s take just a few moments and talk about what exactly it is and then how it can help our marriages.

What is First Fruits?

We find the principle of first fruits all throughout the Bible. In the simplest of terms, first fruits simply means “your first and your best”. We are to always bring our first and best to God. He deserves and desires it. We find the very first mention of the principle of bringing the first and the best in Genesis chapter 4 with the story of Cain and Abel.

In the course of time, Cain brought some of the fruits of the soil as an offering to the Lord.  And Abel also brought an offering—fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock. The Lord looked with favor on Abel and his offering,

Genesis 4:3-4 emphasis mine

We see here how God honor Abels offering because he brought his first and his best. The Lord actually makes it a part of the law in Exodus and then again in Leviticus.

“When you come into the land which I give you and reap its harvest, then you shall bring a sheaf of the first fruits of your harvest to the priest.”

~Leviticus 23:10

So why should we do this, other than the obvious reason which is the Lord deserves our best? To answer that question lets look a little deeper into the meaning of these words. The Hebrew word for first fruit is “bikkurim” which means “promise to come.” So when we give the Lord our first and our best we are stepping out on faith believing since we gave the Lord our best He will, in turn, take care of and bless everything that comes afterwards. We are giving with open hands so we will be postured to receive with open hands.

This same principle is displayed in the New Testament with Jesus. God gave us His son Jesus as a first fruit offering for our salvation. God gave His absolute best for us.

This was just a brief explanation of first fruits. I encourage you to look it up and study it more in-depth. It is mentioned way more than the few verses I have used here. It is important for us because it is a principle that the Lord still honors. When we give God our best we put ourselves in a place to receive His best. The same principle will works for us in marriage as well.

Marriage and First Fruits

I said earlier that first fruits means to bring your first and your best. When it comes to marriage it means that our spouses should get the first and the best of us. That is such a simple sentence to write but such a hard thing to walk out. Think about it, we have so many things that buy for our attention. Important things, that need to be dealt with correctly and quickly. It is easy to let important things get the best part of us to the point where when we get home there is not much left for us to give to our spouses. But first fruits means “promise to come” so if we want the promise of a happy, healthy marriage we have to give it our first and our best. Below are just a few ways that we can start giving our marriage and our spouses our first and best.

If your schedule will not allow for this (or if you or your spouse are just not morning people) send a text or leave a note for them to wake up too! Find a way to voice upfront that you love and care about them!

During this date-time give your full attention and effort. Turn your phones off or on silent. Don’t talk about work. Really make it about enjoyment and fun.

There are so many ways to invest in your marriage. Make it a point to invest in your marriage as many times as possible! We know that if we make a good financial investment we will get a good return! The same applies to marriage! We get what we put in but if we will give our first and our best we will get even more!

Marriage is a good investment which means you will get a good return!

We know from the story of Cain and Abel that God honors our first and our best! This means that if we give our spouse our first and our best God will honor that as well. When we take the time to pour into our marriages we will see a change. It may take some time but the promise will come!

You can do this!

We are praying for you!

Tagged