Title: What is God's to God
God's things to God
Exodus 13:1-10
“Every first-born among the children of Israel, whether man or beast, consecrate to me, for this is mine” (Exodus 13:2).
They say stealing, robbery, theft, fraud, embezzlement, etc., to make something that does not belong to you in an improper way. Everything in the world belongs to God. Why? Because God started it and God made it. Having faith starts here. To acknowledge and confess that He is Lord.
The Passover is a feast to remind the Israelites of this fact. Let's look at the scene of the Passover meal of the Israelites. The family sits around the table. Yesterday, my mother took away all the leaven from the house. While eating unleavened rice cakes (unleavened bread), the father talks to the children.
“Children, our ancestors were slaves in Egypt, and with God’s help, they escaped… ” And he will continue to teach the following lessons: All first-born maidens belong to God. This is because, by God's grace, when God struck all the maidens in the land of Egypt with a plague of death, the maidens of Israel survived. The firstborn are representatives of everything. So, to say that the firstborn belongs to God goes further and means that everything is His.
Tithing offerings have that meaning. I'm not saying that one out of ten is the Lord's and the other nine are mine. Confessing that all my possessions belong to God, I am offering one of the most precious among them as a sign. One hangs everything else. We confess that not only wealth, but our health, children, and even our life itself belongs to God.
The same is true for worshiping God on Sunday and keeping Sunday as a holy day. Sunday is the first day of a week. God is the master of all time. The first day is the tithe of time. Giving the first hour to God, confessing and proclaiming that all the remaining hours and days belong to God.
It is for the same reason that we eat unleavened bread at the Passover. The Feast of Unleavened Bread coincides with the beginning of the barley harvest. He confesses that he starts eating again with God's help by putting away all the leaven that he used before, making bread from the newly harvested grain and eating it. The seven-day Feast of Unleavened Bread is the feast of liberation and salvation. The core principle is ‘a new beginning’. God is always like that. Through creation, He opened being. A new time has been opened with the salvation of Jesus. Today, God renews us.
* Prayer: I confess that everything belongs to the Lord. Let's renew our home today. I pray in Jesus name. Amen.