Devotions for God’s Family – 1

Genesis 4:1–7 (ESV): Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.” 2 And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. 3 In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4 and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. 6 The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”

Now, after carefully reading this passage, I will share with you an assumption that I held for a long time that actually blocked truth from taking root in my life.

The acceptance or rejection of the offering by Cain and Abel to God was not based on what was brought, it was based on when it was brought. I always thought God had regard for what was brought. He has more regard for when it is brought.  

This is a very clear picture of God, He is ready to receive from these two brothers. Also, we see that one offering was acceptable and one was not. In my past, not much thought on my part had been given to why God accepted one offering over the other, but I believe if we look at the passage, it indicates to us a very very important truth regarding the heart and nature of God.

We also see, that one brother was blessed and one brother walked out in a curse. God, even warned one of the brothers to be very careful about what was going on in his heart.

Now, with that background, let’s take a look at what is going on and draw truth for life from it.

In verse 3 we are told that in the course of time Cain brought to God an offering. What this means is, Cain did not bring the first of his harvest. The phrase, in the course of time, means that it had to be second or beyond.

When I was younger I believed that the reason that God did not accept Cain’s offering was because it was not flesh and blood. I had no grounds for that thought, and the Bible certainly didn’t distinguish between God’s preference of animal over plant at all. I was wrong in my thinking for sure.

Look at what the Bible says, “In the course of time.” In Cain’s mind, He reserved the best for himself and in the course of time, he gave to God the seconds or beyond. Cain did not offer a first fruit, nor did he give to God in faith.

You might think that because God was right there with them that they didn’t need faith at all. But they did. Even though they could see God with their eyes they still had to trust that He would bless them and provide for them.

Cain knew God, and yet Cain still brought to God the leftovers of his harvest.

God deserves the first.

As-a-matter-of-fact, God cannot accept anything second. God can only accept the first. He is preeminent. That means He is always first and always deserves the first. Think about this, God only gives the first and best in the same way He only receives the first and the best.

God gives the first He has to you and receives the first that you have to give to Him. This is precisely why He gave Jesus to you as a sin offering. In His heart, this was the only way, not simply because Jesus was a spotless Lamb, but because being who God is, there was no other offering available, except for His first and best.

This is His heart. His great love demands that first and best are principles of giving.

Cain’s offering was not accepted because it didn’t meet God’s standard for offerings to God. Cain was selfish.

Jesus, was sacrificed on the cross so that God’s demand for an offering that was the first could be satisfied. And every soul after Jesus could be redeemed. Apart from Jesus, there is nothing that can be offered to God that is acceptable to Him. It has to pass through the blood of Jesus to be acceptable.

When our righteous offering goes to Jesus as our first, His blood covers what we give. And that offering becomes a blessing to the Lord.

Cain gave in the course of time. Please my friend, don’t think of giving to God your left overs.

When I retire I will serve God.

When I make my first million, then I will give to God.

When my life settles down then I will seek God.

When I feel the Holy Spirit then I will get serious about God.       

When I am older than I will live right.

God doesn’t want you to be a Cain walker. He wants the curse lifted from your life. What You offer to God as. First and best, He will redeem.

Praise You holy Lord! We love You, not simply with our words and our Sunday mornings, we love You with our lives. All of our lives! You deserve the best and first of everything we have! Everything I have belongs to You! You have purchased me with Your blood, I am Yours! What do I have that I could say is more valuable to me than You blessing? Nothing! Everything I have You have given to me. I want my life to be a living sacrifice holy and acceptable to You! Praise Your holy name Jesus, for You have made all the blessings in the heavenlies possible through Your shed blood.

Devotions for God’s Family – 2

Genesis 4:1–7 (ESV): Now Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore Cain, saying, “I have gotten a man with the help of the Lord.” 2 And again, she bore his brother Abel. Now Abel was a keeper of sheep, and Cain a worker of the ground. 3 In the course of time Cain brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground, 4 and Abel also brought of the firstborn of his flock and of their fat portions. And the Lord had regard for Abel and his offering, 5 but for Cain and his offering he had no regard. So Cain was very angry, and his face fell. 6 The Lord said to Cain, “Why are you angry, and why has your face fallen? 7 If you do well, will you not be accepted? And if you do not do well, sin is crouching at the door. Its desire is contrary to you, but you must rule over it.”

We took a look at Cain in our last devotional, not we should take a little time to look at Abel.

Let’s remember that Cain’s sin was not a sin of bringing the wrong thing to God, it was the sin of being late in bringing the offering. Cain waited and Abel brought the first of the offspring of his animals.

The first of the offspring that Abel gave to the Lord means that before Abel knew what was going to come next, he determined in his heart to give to the Lord. Abel, trusted God. He believed that God would provide even though he gave to God the first of his livestock offspring.

A thought that I had about these two brothers and the family as a whole, is that there had to be some teaching in the family about first fruit living. Otherwise, how would they know? Adam and Eve must have shared with them how they went about honoring the Lord.

Faith in God was a key component for the first family on earth.

Hebrews 11:1-4 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen. For by it the people of old received their commendation. By faith we understand that the universe was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was not made out of things that are visible. By faith Abel offered to God a more acceptable sacrifice than Cain, through which he was commended as righteous, God commending him by accepting his gifts. And through his faith, though he died, he still speaks.

That’s right, Abel still speaks on the issue of faith. This is precisely why the author of Hebrews identifies Abel as one commended for his faith. He gave to God the first of what he had.

When the author of Hebrews references people of old, he is speaking about a way of life for generations of people. They lived with something they didn’t have. They only had the promise that God made to them. And they lived in full assurance that God would provide what they couldn’t see.

In Hebrews 11:1, the word “conviction” means…proof. The way they lived was the proof that what they didn’t have was real. These wonderful people believed a promise from the Lord and they walked out the possession of the promise even though the promise was not yet realized.

First fruit living is our modern-day faith walk. We give to God even though we have not seen Him with our physical eyes. We know He is real, and we know that He knows us, by faith. We trust the mighty powerful work of Jesus on the cross, by faith.

Can you think of an aspect of your life that doesn’t require faith? I can’t.

As we close out this devotional for today, can you think about your life and see if there is a place where the Lord could be honored with first-fruit living?

Please do not fall to the deception that many do. They say, “Well, Jesus is my first fruit offering therefore God will accept anything that I give to Him.” “Jesus paid for all of my sin, so I am in no way obligated to God to give anything, I am free from all of that.”

If I walked in this attitude, I would be wrong, and I would also be missing the heart of God.

Let me put it another way:

Who are you thanking (honoring) for your salvation?

Who are you thanking (honoring) for your new life?

Who are you thanking (honoring) for rescuing you from bondage?

I want to give a precious gift to the Lord. So, I give to God my heart, the closer my heart gets to the Father, my heart comes into comparison with His heart. I clearly see that from His heart comes the first and best toward me. I have given Him my heart so now my heart is shaped by what I see in His heart. I choose to become like Him. The first person I want to give to and the first person that should receive from me, is Him. He gets the first and the best, because I am like Him. Any aspect of my being that is unwilling to give to Him the first and the best is a part of me that is not like Him. I want everything in me to be like Him.

God, please continue to shape my life according to Your goodness and kindness. Please help me draw near to you so that I can see more of Your heart and be transformed into more than I am today. I freely admit my great need for You. Without You, what chance do I have to survive what chance do I have at becoming anything worth salvaging and redeeming? Only Your love and mercy can help me. Praise Your name Lord! Thank You for Jesus! Thank You for the cross that You died on. Thank You for the powerful resurrection that has brought new life to me.   

Devotions for God’s Family – 3

Did you know that there are things God can’t do? “Well, pastor, my God can do anything!” Ok, let’s talk about a few things then.

Can God lie? I say, because He is sovereign, He can’t. This touches on the subject called the sovereignty of God. It is not like God has wanted to lie and fought it back, or a lie is sitting on the edge of His lips. God has no need to lie because He has everything, owns everything. He is not in want. A person lies to get something they want or to avoid something they don’t want.

God avoids nothing and has everything. Besides all of this, He is truth, there is no darkness, deceit or sin in Him.

There is no one that can give God something He doesn’t want! And there is no one that can take from God that which He isn’t willing to give! You can’t steal from God and get away with it, and you can’t lay on God something that He isn’t willing to receive. God isn’t ever going to say, “I am so sorry, I was wrong” for something that happened in your life.  

If you are waiting for God to say, “I am sorry” to you…He won’t. Not because He is stubborn – He is not stubborn, He is sovereign. He is right, just, good, fair – He is sovereign. Far above you and me. 

In wisdom, one day, those who have walked in the brokenness of this world will look upon a sovereign God and say…YOU SIR are GOOD! Romans 8:18 (NLT) Yet what we suffer now is nothing compared to the glory he will reveal to us later.

What is the glory Paul is talking about? Him! He is going to reveal Himself! And when He does, we are going to say…How did I ever survive His holiness and sovereignty? He will say, “Because I love you and have chosen you.” Truly because of His sovereignty, God cannot lie.

Can God change? I say, because God is immutable, He cannot change. He is unachievable perfection. If God could change, that would mean He could get better, God cannot get better, because He is best.

God hasn’t ever achieved anything! God can’t achieve because that means He would be moving from better to best and He cannot do that. He didn’t become perfect, He has always been perfect. Hebrews 13:8 Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.

Does God have to figure things out? God can’t figure things out.  This touches the omniscience of God. He can’t think the way that you and I think.

Isaiah 55:8-9 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

Wait, what do you mean God can’t think?! We think to figure things out, God’s not trying to figure anything out. God has never tried to figure things out. You try to figure things out, not God. The reason God can’t think the way we think is because God knows everything. He knows all things. Let me put it this way, God knows everything at the same time. You have to massage your brain a little bit to understand this.

He doesn’t have books, except for your sake. He doesn’t have a hard drive where He stores information and then accesses it. He is in touch with all information that has ever existed and will exist all at the same time. He can’t turn His head from something and then come back to it later. His inactivity is not forgetfulness or inability…its timing.

Not only does God know everything all at once, He is fully invested in everything everywhere at the same time. He can’t stop His involvement with one thing so He can give something else His full attention.

Everything past, present and future has God’s full attention – And He doesn’t struggle, it doesn’t even tax His abilities.  

God has never had a new thought. He has never been surprised or shocked by new information. Nothing has ever occurred to God. God has never said, “Do you know what I just thought of?” “I just thought of something I have never thought of before.” Isaiah says my thoughts are not your thoughts, yes God thinks, but when He thinks it’s with the totality of all information past, present and future.

He knows you completed. He sees you and knows exactly where you will be standing and what you will be doing in 1 million years. You try to figure things out so that things will improve, God made you that way. God already knows and is shaping your life with every decision you make. He is steadily, constantly taking you down the road to your destiny.

Now, last of all, can God be second in anything? This touches the preeminence of God. He is before all, above all, first of all. Let me be straight with you, even if you do not put God first in your life, He is still first in the universe.

You and I, we don’t want to be second fiddle. Sometimes we struggle with unrighteous pride that demands that we be first. We want to be first, God, because of His nature, is first. So, because God is first in the universe, because God is preeminent, He cannot accept anything second.

He accepts the first and He blesses the first offering – this was a command to the people of Israel, and it is a principle and a truth that you automatically respond to. Why do I say automatically? Because it doesn’t really matter what you say, your life speaks louder than your words in this matter.

Giving your first fruits offering to the Lord is so much more than money! It truly is about the heart.

Proverbs 3:9-10 Honor the LORD with your wealth and with the first fruits of all your produce; 10 then your barns will be filled with plenty, and your vats will be bursting with wine.

Lord, You are far above all! You deserve the first and the best of my life. Please teach us how to do that more and more as we live. I praise You today because You never change. What You taught mankind to be and do is still the exact same today. You were first then and You are first today. Jesus has paved the way for us to be acceptable to You, thank You for that. Today though, I still want to make You first in everything. Thank You Lord!  

Blessings

Pastor D