To honor somebody means to give respect, reverence, or to pay tribute. Well, God is worthy to be honored, lifted up, respected, reverenced—and much more. One way to honor the Lord is with the first fruits of your substance.
Verse ten of our passage in Proverbs says, "…so shall your barns will be filled with plenty, and your presses shall burst with new wine." In other words, if you honor God, God will honor you.
Now, Satan has done everything to make the body of Christ unhappy about giving in the offering. He wants you to see it as a chore rather than a way to minister and honor the Heavenly Father.
In Matthew 26:7, a woman ministers to the Lord by pouring very expensive ointment on His head. Now, this ointment was worth a year's wage. Now just think about that, she gave a whole year's wage.
But when the disciples saw what she did, they were indignant and thought it was a waste of money. This precious ointment was very costly. They wanted to know the purpose of this waste. They felt like saying, "Lady, you could have use that for something else. You could have bought a brand new donkey, or a house, or some clothes."
Satan says the same thing to us today. When you get your yearly statement, which shows you what you gave to the church, the devil says to you, "What is the purpose of this waste?"
Has the devil ever talked to you like that? When Deborah and I first got married, our yearly income was less than $6,000 a year.
We had all these bills and a little bit of money. Well I'm looking at this $6,000 yearly income and I'm thinking that's $600 in tithes—wow! However, we had already made a decision that we would minister unto the Lord with our substance first, and that's what we did.
Yes, that expensive ointment might have been sold for much and given to the poor, but Jesus didn't think so. He said the woman did a good work and wherever this gospel is preached, what this woman did shall be told as a memorial to her.
And here we are, over 2000 years later, still talking about this woman. God honored her because she honored Him. And he will do the same for you.
Scripture Reference: Luke 6:38
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