26When you have come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance to possess, and you possess it, and settle in it, 2you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from the land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket and go to the place that the Lord your God will choose as a dwelling for his name.3You shall go to the priest who is in office at that time, and say to him, ‘Today I declare to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our ancestors to give us.’ 4When the priest takes the basket from your hand and sets it down before the altar of the Lord your God, 5you shall make this response before the Lord your God: ‘A wandering Aramean was my ancestor; he went down into Egypt and lived there as an alien, few in number, and there he became a great nation, mighty and populous. 6When the Egyptians treated us harshly and afflicted us, by imposing hard labour on us,7we cried to the Lord, the God of our ancestors; the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 8The Lord brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with a terrifying display of power, and with signs and wonders; 9and he brought us into this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. 10So now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground that you, O Lord, have given me.’ You shall set it down before the Lord your God and bow down before the Lord your God. 11Then you, together with the Levites and the aliens who reside among you, shall celebrate with all the bounty that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house.
For the Hebrew people, remembering the mighty deeds of God was important. They passed the stories down from generation to generation, so that their people would not forget the importance of God and the importance of worship. This scripture describes an act of worship and remembrance. They acknowledged the blessings of God in the land that they had been brought into and they remembered the actions of God in the past.
We can learn quite a bit from this kind of worship. We need acknowledge who God is and how God has been active in our lives. We need to tell and retell the stories of Jesus and our personal stories of faith. Those stories strengthen others and remind us of the hope that we have in Christ.
We also need to bring our very best to God. The “first fruits” are the very best of the land. When we give to God we should give the very best of our time, talents, gifts and resources. God deserves our very best each day.
Blessings,
Pastor Mandy