August 25, 2025 • 27 mins
Have you ever considered what it truly means to give God your very best? In this soul-stirring conversation, Pastor Lee Day and Brother Frankie Brown unpack the ancient biblical principle of First Fruits and reveal its transformative power for modern Christian living.
Drawing from Exodus 23:19, "The best of the first fruits of your ground you shall bring into the house of the Lord, your God," they challenge listeners to examine whether they're offering God their prime morning hours or merely the leftover scraps of their day. Through vivid analogies—from garden-fresh tomatoes to perfectly ripe avocados that brown as the day progresses—they illustrate how our spiritual receptivity naturally diminishes throughout our waking hours.
Brother Frankie vulnerably shares his own journey of answering God's call to rise earlier for devotional writing, noting how dramatically it has enriched his spiritual life. Meanwhile, Pastor Lee recounts a powerful testimony of how simply praying before his pre-dawn work shift resulted in a security guard immediately recognizing his Christian witness—simply by watching him walk across a parking lot.
The conversation expands beyond morning devotions to explore how First Fruits applies to our finances, travel plans, and work life. Both men emphasize that giving God our best isn't about obligation but hunger—a spiritual appetite that grows as we consistently feast on His presence first thing each day.
Whether you're struggling with consistency in your devotional life or looking to deepen your spiritual practices, this episode offers practical wisdom for anyone seeking to honor God with their best instead of their leftovers. Listen now to discover how the ancient principle of First Fruits can revolutionize your relationship with God and transform every aspect of your day.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Good morning, good morning, good morning or good
afternoon, depending upon atwhat time you are listening to
this podcast.
I'm Pastor Lee Day.
I pastor Christ Family OutreachChurch, located in Amelia,
virginia, and today, back at thetable, I've got Brother Frankie
Brown.
We're going to be talking aboutFirst Fruits.
So to the listeners out there,I'm excited to get going on this
(00:33):
one, this whole topic of FirstFruits.
A few weeks ago, at the closingof a Thursday night Recharge
Church service, I was prayingand as I was praying, the Holy
Spirit was just ministering tome and had me pray something
that, going into the prayer, Iwasn't already thinking about
praying.
You ever been there before?
Right, absolutely.
You start praying about onething, you end up Another place,
(00:54):
your spirit leads you toanother place and you're praying
about something completelydifferent.
And where the Holy Spirit hadme go to in that prayer was that
we as a people would offerAlmighty God the first fruit of
our lives.
So ever since then, frankie,I've been kind of chewing on
this thing, you know, just kindof marinate on what does the
(01:14):
first fruit of my life look like?
But a little deeper than that,right, what is the first fruit
of my day look like, and that'sreally what we're going to talk
about today, because it was ablessed time that night as we
were praying as a church familywhat it looked like to offer God
our best, to offer God ourfirst fruit.
But this episode is going tofocus on what it means for
(01:35):
Christians today to offer Godour first fruits in the fact of
first thing in the morning.
So, brother Frankie, I'mexcited.
It's going to be a greatepisode.
What's your thought process onthe first fruits?
First waking up with God in themorning and giving Him your
best.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Something I've been recently put into practice in my
life is really dedicating thatfirst hour I wake up to the Lord
to get his word, and one of theways I do it, um, is by writing
devotionals.
Um, I love, I love to write,man, and, uh, the Holy Spirit
(02:13):
just really ministers to me andhe's been calling me for a while
now to get up earlier and, uh,I finally answered a call, but I
wasn't always obedient to iteither, yeah, but my life has
looked so much more rich nowbecause of it.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah, there's something about that early
morning hour, brother Frankie,before the house gets stirred
and woken, you know, for thosewho have children, you know what
I'm talking about.
It's that time, while everyoneis still sleeping, that you can
really get up early and justthink, you know, or even maybe
before the spouse startsstirring around and moving and
(02:50):
causing your attention to betaken off of what you're doing
and maybe onto what they'redoing.
I started to study a little bitthis topic of first fruits in
the Bible.
Right, and the first fruitbiblically refers to a yield
from crops and it symbolized acouple things.
It symbolized their dedicationto God that they were going to
(03:10):
offer this first fruit offering,and it also symbolized a
gratitude towards God that hehad provided them the
opportunity to have a fruit, youknow, and to offer the first
fruit, right, so it was a timeof thanksgiving for his
provision.
So listen to the following verse, my friends.
It's found in Exodus 23, 19.
(03:30):
If you got your Bibles, exodus23, 19 says this the best of the
first fruits of your ground youshall bring into the house of
the Lord, your God.
All right, so that's Exodus 23,19.
I'm gonna read it again thebest of the firstfruits of your
(03:52):
ground you shall bring into thehouse of the Lord, your God.
So a question that I just wantus to ask ourselves, just a
little inventory question hereare we giving God our absolute
best of our day, our absolutebest first thing in the morning?
And let me say this before weget any deeper If we are not
careful, we are going to takethe best of our morning, brother
Frankie.
We're going to take the best ofour morning and instead of
giving it to God, instead ofgiving that best quiet time to
(04:14):
God, we're going to divide it upand we give God a little bit
and we give ourselves a littlebit, we give other people a
little bit and instead of givingthat first fruit to the Father,
other people a little bit.
And instead of giving thatfirst fruit to the Father,
instead of going deeper into ourstudy, deeper into our prayer
time, we move on to somethingelse before our day gets going
(04:34):
and we really get things out offocus.
So I'm not saying that wecannot do multiple things in our
morning, don't get me wronghere.
But we should not sacrifice thebest morning.
Don't get me wrong here.
But we should not sacrifice thebest.
We should not give up the earlyquiet time in our home in order
to get other things done.
First we need to take the bestand give it to God.
What you take, brother Frankie.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Amen.
It's amazing how the Spiritworks, man, because I got Exodus
23, 19 written in my notes here.
Come on, man, look at that.
But this one came out of theNIV.
I'm just going to read theverse too, because it reads just
slightly different.
It says bring the best of thefirst fruits of your soul to the
house of the Lord, your God.
And as you're sitting therebringing that up, man, I'm
thinking about soul of the heart, yeah, you know.
(05:16):
So how can one not give thefirst fruit back when you
understand that it is his wordthat changed the soul of your
heart?
Yeah, and it's his.
And his word is the seed too.
Ain't nothing wrong with thatseed, man?
We, that seed is perfect, yeah,but a lot of times, when we put
it inside of our hearts andminds, if it doesn't produce
fruit to begin with, thenthere's something wrong with the
(05:38):
soul, yeah, so, right heresaying, um, the first fruits of
your soul, yeah, bring, bringthe best of it to him.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yeah, that's so good.
I was just talking to ouryoungest son, josiah, he's 13.
And I w I was giving him justkind of like this word picture
of first fruits and and we wereactually doing a little study.
He and I were doing a littlestudy in James, chapter one, and
we were just talking about theimportance of some things and
and and and the topic kind ofkind of pushed over in the
(06:04):
chapter one and we were justtalking about the importance of
some things and and and, and thetopic kind of kind of pushed
over in the first fruit.
And I was telling him I was likeremember when we used to plant
a garden and you kind of youcoming out of the winter into
the spring, it's been a longtime since you had that fresh
tomato, you know what I meanRight on the plant.
And I was like remember when weplant that plant and how you
have to really work it.
(06:25):
You got to work the soil, yougot to take care of the plant,
you got to fertilize it, you gotto water it, you really got to
love it.
You know what I mean.
You really got to put love andnurture that thing.
You do have to nurture it.
Yeah, and I was like every day,remember how we would go out
there.
We would check like just thecondition of the plant.
And then all of a sudden you'veseen this little green baby
tomato on there and you watchthis thing like like you know,
(06:46):
like you are invested and it'sbecause the truth is you are,
that's right and you watch thisgreen little tomato get bigger
and larger and larger and largerand then it starts to change
color, you know, and you're likehey, can't pick it just yet, it
ain't right yet.
Can't pick it just yet, itain't right yet, until, finally,
you know that it is at the spotwhere it's ready to end up on
your sandwich.
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Hey bro, how long is it before you put a fence around
that thing too?
Yeah, no, you're absolutelyright, because you don't want to
see something.
Come eat that thing that you'vebeen growing, you know?
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Yeah, you want to protect it right, absolutely, so
we could get into this.
We're to protect our firstfruit time with the Lord.
Protect our first fruit timewith the Lord.
Put the phone away, praise theLord, unplug the phone, you know
.
Turn it off close the laptop.
You know what I mean.
Hey, tell your spouse this ismy quiet time.
If you're getting up, that'sgreat.
Go have your quiet time, butmake sure you don't interrupt my
quiet time.
And eventually maybe even havequiet time together, right, but
(07:47):
I need my quiet time with theLord.
So eventually that tomato getsto the point where it can hit
the sandwich.
And I was telling him how youknow, later on in the season you
don't get as excited aboutthose tomatoes because you
already had the first.
You know.
So that first fruit is soprecious it really is.
And that's where I'm at on thistopic of giving that first hour
that we're awake, or that first30 minutes wherever somebody's
(08:09):
at in their personal time withthe Lord.
Right now, gotta get that firstfruit over to God.
Brother Frankie, here's the dealwhen it comes to our quiet time
with the Lord.
It's just my personalconviction.
We should not get up from ourquiet time until we feel full.
(08:29):
I'm a big believer in that.
I like that, bro.
We should not get up from thetable until we feel full, just
like at the breakfast table, thelunch table, the dinner table.
We don't want to get up till wefeel satisfied.
That's right, you know, can Ihave some more of that please?
You know what I'm saying.
Can you pass that?
(08:49):
Please Pass some red potatoesover here.
Yeah, you know so like we don'tget up from the physical table
until we feel satisfied, untilwe feel full, and I'm just going
to say that we should not getup from our devotional table
until we're full on the thingsof God.
Why?
Because just like physical foodprepares us for our day, the
spiritual food prepares us forthe day.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
You know I don't mean to cut you off, Go ahead
brother, I can kind of see wherethis is going, a little bit
it's like.
So what is your appetite forRight?
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Do you, do you get a little bit at the table when it
comes to like real food or freshfoods, or do you have an
appetite, really, for dessert?
You know things that aren't sogood for you, absolutely.
What do you think about that,bro?
Speaker 1 (09:34):
If we get up from the table.
It means if we get up earlyfrom the table, it means that
we've left things on the table,which means we didn't clean our
spiritual plate.
And how many of us grew up in ahome where your parents or
grandparents looked at you andsaid you ain't getting up from
that table until you finish thatplate.
So you know, I don't know whereyou're at with this, frankie,
(09:55):
but the Lord showed me this inmy life a long time ago.
And I'm not perfect at it, man.
By any means, I'm still workingon my personal relationship
with Jesus Christ.
We all are, but oftentimes wehave all been there.
Oftentimes we get up from thedevotional table, if you will.
We get up from it early becausewe didn't sit down early enough
(10:18):
to finish the meal and we gotto get up because we got things
we got to go, do I?
Speaker 2 (10:23):
was writing a devotion this morning, actually
talking about being afacilitator of blessing.
I was in Malachi Lord forgiveme for not remembering the
chapter or verse, but in therehe was talking about giving a
full tithe to the Lord and itsaid until the full tithe came
in, that your barns wouldn't beoverflowing or full.
(10:44):
And I think a lot of times inour life, brother, that we give
a partial tithe, wanting thefullness of the blessing.
And I've been there in my life,man, but that's, that's what
I've been seeing.
Doing these devotionals andwriting them is when I first
started I'm not going to lie,man, it only took like an
appetizer to word and I wassatisfied, yeah.
(11:04):
And I quickly realized I'm likeLord, like what, what?
What has happened with myappetite?
Like why, why do I hunger andthirst for things?
I mean, I'm, I'm ready to liketo put the word down, bro, and
hit the work to paint, yeah, butI'm not here to paint, yeah,
that's just.
That's just a thing that he'sallowed me to operate in so that
I could be around other peopleto facilitate the blessing.
What's your?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
take on it, brother.
No, I think you're exactlyright.
People give a little bit,whether it be tithe or time or
talent.
They give a little bit over tothe Lord, expecting to receive
the full blessing.
I want to take a moment anddive right into the Old
Testament, brother Frankie.
(11:44):
Leviticus 23.14 says that nograin was to be harvested at all
until the first fruits offeringwas brought to the Lord.
So think about that.
No grain could be harvested atall until God was first offered
up the first fruits that he wasworthy of.
So, in other words, you're notgoing to eat from this field,
(12:06):
people, right?
You're not going to eat fromthis field because you won't
harvest this field until thefirst fruits, the best of the
field, come to God, right?
So think about that Before yougo to work, before you go to
work in this field for yourself,before you reap a reward or a
return for yourself.
You got to give God thanks withthe first fruits of the field.
(12:28):
So, brother Frankie, I've beenguilty of leaving the house in
the morning wanting to get thereturn of the field, but not
giving God first fruits first.
You ain't alone, you know,because I got a big day planned
right, or because I wasn'tfeeling it, or because I wasn't
feeling good, or because I wastired, because I stayed up late
night before watching the biggame on TV, right, and it's all
(12:50):
me stuff, which means it's allme problems.
You know what I mean.
So I'm just, for whateverreason, ready to get out the
door, ready to get the day going.
I'm looking to receive theharvest of the day when I leave
from the house, but I haven'tyet given God the first fruits
of the day.
Man.
And I think that that pieceright there in Leviticus is so
huge because it's days like thatthat I've got to force myself
(13:12):
to slow down and remember totruly get with God.
It reminds me of this scenarioof a toll booth.
It used to be before smart tagtechnology that you actually had
to stop at the toll booth.
You actually had to hand moneyover to an attendant if you did
not have the exact change andthere would be an actual verbal
(13:34):
exchange with a real live person.
But now you can avoid theinteraction altogether.
You don't even have to slowdown too much.
You could just like with asmart tag man, you could just
roll right through that thing,right, you can simply blow right
through it and the people stillget the money, but there's zero
(13:54):
interaction.
That's right, so we're notcareful.
Our Bible time can look justlike that toll booth experience
with a smart tag we blow rightthrough it with little to zero
interaction with God, and Ithink that's really dangerous,
man, when we have a quiet time,when we have a time where we're
(14:15):
really going to get into a Biblestudy, but there's little to no
interaction with God.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Yeah, Brother, I was on the way over here today.
I had already spent a littletime trying to prepare for this,
but, man, the Lord justquickened in me while I was
driving to your house to recordI love avocado, I love it, bro.
But every time we go to thestore, man, I'll get like three
or four.
Yeah, them bad boys will go badif.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
I get a hold of them quick, right yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
So what the Spirit ministered to me on the way over
is like, like an avocado.
You only have so much timebefore it starts to turn on you.
Yeah, um.
And there's times too when hewas ministering to me that, like
that avocado, if you ate itearlier in the week it would
have been good, but if you waitto friday and saturday, that
thing's starting to changecolors, it's starting to mix.
(15:07):
It don't look green, no more.
You know, don't taste the same,it don't taste the same.
But what?
What he was ministering to mewas this that avocado and that
representation, what we justexplained, that's what your day
looks like.
So in the morning, if you diveinto the word spend the first
fruits of the day first thing inthe morning with him, it'll
look the Word spend the firstfruits of the day first thing in
the morning with him, it'lllook like a green avocado.
But come back later that day,come back that evening when
(15:30):
you've spent all your firstfruits on everything else and
you're going to have that mixedavocado that's just trash worthy
.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
It's trash worthy?
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Absolutely, because it's been weathered.
It's weathered, bro, it's beenweathered.
It's weathered, bro, it's beenweathered.
I shared an analogy a few weeksago at church, while preaching
of a pie.
And you know, you have one lastpiece of pie in the
refrigerator, so you spend allday at work.
You come home, you go to get it, you pull down the box and you
look and the only thing left isa small piece of crust in the
(16:00):
pan.
And how upset you'd be right,how disappointed, right.
Imagine how God feels, brotherFrankie, when what we offer him
in our lives is not the entirepie it's not even half the pie,
it's not even a slice of the pie, but it's the crust.
It's the crust, and sometimesmaybe not even that.
You know what I mean.
(16:21):
So let me explain for a moment.
You wake up in the morning withintentions to pray, with
intention to study God's wordand spend time with God Almighty
.
But you were really tired soyou slept in saying oh God,
forgive me, father, I will meetwith you at lunch.
I will get with you on my lunchbreak.
We've all been there before.
Right, at my lunch break I'mgoing to move to a quiet place
(16:41):
and have devotions, except whenlunch comes.
You've already had the busynessof that first piece of your
workday.
So you get wrapped up inconversation or playing a game
on your phone, surfing theInternet or the socials, and you
say to God you know what Godforgive me, father, but I'm
going to do devotions when I gethome.
Problem with that?
(17:02):
Is sounds like a great idea.
But you get home, brotherFrankie, and there's chores that
got to be done, maybe got toclean up a little bit from where
you left so quickly thatmorning.
You left a little mess.
The house needs to be picked up.
And then, right after that man,sooner or later, dinner's
coming fast, you know, yeah.
So then you say, okay, god,after dinner.
Father, forgive me, but I'mgoing to do this after dinner
(17:24):
and we're going to have time.
But then you get caught up infront of the TV or watching that
game, or listening to thatprogram or that podcast, or
doing what you're doing, and yousay, all right, god, I'm going
to do when everybody goes to bed, because the house is just too
noisy right now.
Forgive me, god, I'll do it,I'll do it when everybody goes
to bed.
Then everybody goes to bed,right, the house gets quiet, and
you lay down and you're tootired to remain focused for very
(17:45):
long, start to feel a littleguilty about it.
So you simply say, oh, forgiveme, father, I'll do it tomorrow
morning.
And yes, my friends, at thatpoint, that's when we're giving
God the absolute crust.
There's 24 hours in a full day,and yet we've chosen, we've
elected.
Our choice is to give God thecrust.
So, my friends, god desiresmore than crust, he desires more
(18:09):
than a slice, he desires morethan a half, he desires the
first fruits of our lives, andhe alone is worthy of it all.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
He's more worthy than that rotten avocado that we
give him, brother.
Or that little bit of crustlike he was describing yeah,
given brother.
Or that little bit of crustlike you was describing, yeah,
brother, what's your take on?
Like what modern day firstfruits would look like for the
listener?
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Yeah, so today we're sitting here talking about the
angle of first fruits.
Is, you know, the first fruitin the morning, right?
But there are other things,there are other things to.
To me it would be the first ofwhatever you know.
So so I look at the tithe.
Tithe meaning 10%.
Yeah, uh, to me that's anotherfirst fruit.
(18:53):
It's a first fruit of my, of myincome.
You know, there's, there's, sothere's so many different things
that that we could, that wecould give over to God.
I mean, even when we just jumpinto something, I don't, I don't
like, I don't like jumping intomuch of anything without prayer
.
So I'll give you a perfectexample.
This isn't just to boast me up,I'm just answering the question
.
Yeah, absolutely, if my familygets in a vehicle and we're
(19:16):
going to the store right, and wegot to go spend money we're
going school shopping for thechildren, right, so we
homeschool, but our oldest isaway at college.
Just the other day we went backto school shopping for him for
clothes we get in the car.
The first thing we do beforethat thing hits reverse is I'm
praying, I'm giving God thefirst fruit of that time in
(19:40):
prayer, like Lord, we are takingthe next five hours, however
long it's going to be, and we'regoing out here and we're
spending money that you haveblessed us with.
That's right, and I don't wantto be frustrated.
I'm not a big shopper.
You know what I mean.
I don't like shopping, but atthe end of the day, before we
even move, I'm going to take thefirst piece of that five hours.
(20:02):
I'm going to take the firstpiece of it and I'm going to go
to God in prayer that God wouldprotect us, that we would honor
God even in public, that wewould be the light of Christ
shining and this may sound crazyman, but I do it all the time.
Even for going to groceryshopping man, I'm asking God to
just bless us with deals, blessus with sales.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
You know what I mean.
Absolutely Nothing wrong withthat.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
No, brother.
So so that's a whole notherpiece of first fruit.
Thanking.
You know, before we, before weleave, before we go on vacation,
before we even hit it inreverse to back out of the of
the driveway, I pray over thevacation, I pray over the family
.
I'm giving God the very firstof that trip.
So, so there's so many ways youcan look at first fruits.
(20:46):
You know so many ways.
You just pull up to your joband you know you're getting
ready to work the next eighthours.
Take some time and pray.
Take some time and pray.
I did that.
I'm going to share a quicktestimony.
I did that one particular placeI was working and it was like
1.30 in the morning you know,two in the morning, it was
(21:08):
really early and I'm servicingsome vending machines at the
time inside of a really largewarehouse and I pull up into the
parking lot and I just I backedthe work truck in there and I
just sit in the work truck asI'm getting ready to start my
day and I just start praying,having a time of prayer, I'm
(21:30):
giving God my first fruit rightthere before I start the work
day.
It's the first fruit of my workday.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
And at the end of the building, which was probably a
few hundred yards, there was atoll booth there.
Not a toll booth, it was aguard shack.
It looked like a toll booth butit was a guard shack.
And when I'm done having myprayer time, I get out the work
truck and all honor, glory,credit and praise to god alone.
Brother.
I start walking towards thatguard shack because I had to
check in, to go in the buildingand service these vending
machines and I think I only hadto go there like once every
(21:58):
couple weeks.
I didn't even know who theguard was.
They rotated all the time.
Right, I'm walking towards thisguard shack.
It's 1.30, two o'clock in themorning, it's dark, middle of
the night it's dark and when Iget to the guard shack the guard
opens up the windows.
A lady.
She says you gotta be aChristian and I said well, yeah,
I'm a servant of the Lord.
(22:19):
I said do you mind me askinghow do you know that?
She said because I just watchedyou walk all the way across
that parking lot.
And she said I could tell adifference in you just while you
walked.
Wow, she said I could see adifference in just how you
carried yourself.
Wow, well, can I just say thatthere's nothing special about me
, but there's something specialabout the Lord who lives in me,
(22:40):
amen, the Holy Spirit of Godthat lives in me and lives in me
, the Holy Spirit of God thatlives in me.
And she saw the light of thepresence of God.
She saw my demeanor had changedsimply because I just spent
time I had given a first fruitof my day, my workday in that
truck.
And as I exited that prayertime and got out the truck, she
could see impact that giving Godmy first fruit had over my life
(23:03):
.
I believe she saw your appetitetoo, bro hunger and thirst.
When Jesus was preaching at theSermon on the Mount, he said
blessed are those who hunger andthirst for righteousness, for
they will be satisfied, amen.
So that's a question.
You know, we've kind of talkedabout food here today just as an
analogy, you know.
But what do we hunger for, amen, brother?
What do we thirst for?
(23:24):
But what do we hunger for, amen, brother?
What do we thirst for?
Are we wanting to give God ourbest?
Are we hungering for that firstfruit hour, for that first
fruit time?
And I'm going to say this themore serious we become about
that first fruit time, givingGod our first.
Amen, brother, the more we wantto keep going to it and
spending time in that firstfruit season.
(23:44):
Amen, brother, the more we wantto keep going to it and
spending time in that firstfruit season Amen brother.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
I want to share a verse, brother, because I can
see that this leads to like whatthe progressions of what first
fruits are and like yourappetite mindset.
But the Spirit gave me thisLuke 6, 38.
Give and it will be given toyou.
Good measure, pressed down,shaken together, running over,
will be put into your lap, forwith the measure you use, it
(24:11):
will be measured back to you.
And I'm just here to remindanybody today, including
ourselves, that you can't affordnot to give.
You can't afford not to giveGod your first fruits because
he's going to put it back inyour lap.
But it's not meant for you tostore into your storehouse.
It's to be stored up so thatyou can give to.
When the time of need comes forsomebody, you can give to them
(24:35):
If it's a legitimate need.
You know you have something togive to those that are in need
and I see that.
I see that taking place in mylife.
So no longer and I'll be honest, bro, I'll confess this that
there was a time that I wasgoing out casting seed so that I
could reap my harvest.
The only issue with that iswhen I dove deeper into the Word
(24:55):
, I realized that God is theLord of the harvest, so he
dictates and determines how it'smeasured and given back.
And I just want to warn anybodyout there today that if they
think that they can sow seedsand and all this for their own
storehouse, that God doesn'toperate like that.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Yeah, that's so good, bro, it's just like that, that,
that that passage that I readin Leviticus earlier.
We have to give our father thefirst fruit before we go reap
anything in the field.
Praise the lord, and we don'twant to get that backwards, you
know, but, but, but there'schristians out there that'll try
to do that.
You know they'll leave thehouse and they'll go reap what's
(25:34):
out in the field, but theyhaven't honored god almighty
with the first fruit of theirday, amen.
So that's going to be a wrap ontoday's episode of giving God
our first fruits and, as we'vementioned a couple of different
things of what that looks like,I believe it's going to give the
listeners a lot to consider, alot to think about.
But, brother, if you'll closethis in prayer, it'd be an honor
(25:56):
, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Father, we just come to you today and we thank you
that we have an opportunitytoday to give you back the first
fruits that belong to you.
Father, I ask, in the name andthe blood of Jesus, that you
will forgive us, lord, for whenwe haven't done this, for when
we don't do this.
And, father, maybe today thelistener is riding down the road
, headed to work or has alreadystarted their day and they
(26:19):
haven't given the first fruits.
I'm here to remind you todaythat God is saying do it again.
Do it.
Do it If I give you another day, do it tomorrow.
Or even give me that avocadothat's rotten or that crust of
the pie, because at least whenyou give that back unto me, it's
what I've given unto you.
(26:39):
But I want more than that and,lord, I just thank you that
you're a God who satisfies, butyou're also a God who allows us
to hunger and thirst for yourword, god, because it's only
your word that will satisfy usat all, god.
So I thank you for the firstfruits that you've given us.
I thank you for today and thismessage, lord, and I pray, god,
(27:00):
that you would take this messagebeyond today, beyond Sunday,
and that you would help us totruly apply it to our lives,
because it will change our livesif we walk in it.
We love you, lord.
We ask all these things in yourmighty name, amen.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Amen and amen, Amen Until next time on Beyond Sunday
.
God bless and honor the Lordwith the first fruits that he's
worthy of.
Good morning, good morning, good morning or good
afternoon, depending upon atwhat time you are listening to
this podcast.
I'm Pastor Lee Day.
I pastor Christ Family OutreachChurch, located in Amelia,
virginia, and today, back at thetable, I've got Brother Frankie
Brown.
We're going to be talking aboutFirst Fruits.
So to the listeners out there,I'm excited to get going on this
(00:33):
one, this whole topic of FirstFruits.
A few weeks ago, at the closingof a Thursday night Recharge
Church service, I was prayingand as I was praying, the Holy
Spirit was just ministering tome and had me pray something
that, going into the prayer, Iwasn't already thinking about
praying.
You ever been there before?
Right, absolutely.
You start praying about onething, you end up Another place,
(00:54):
your spirit leads you toanother place and you're praying
about something completelydifferent.
And where the Holy Spirit hadme go to in that prayer was that
we as a people would offerAlmighty God the first fruit of
our lives.
So ever since then, frankie,I've been kind of chewing on
this thing, you know, just kindof marinate on what does the
(01:14):
first fruit of my life look like?
But a little deeper than that,right, what is the first fruit
of my day look like, and that'sreally what we're going to talk
about today, because it was ablessed time that night as we
were praying as a church familywhat it looked like to offer God
our best, to offer God ourfirst fruit.
But this episode is going tofocus on what it means for
(01:35):
Christians today to offer Godour first fruits in the fact of
first thing in the morning.
So, brother Frankie, I'mexcited.
It's going to be a greatepisode.
What's your thought process onthe first fruits?
First waking up with God in themorning and giving Him your
best.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
Something I've been recently put into practice in my
life is really dedicating thatfirst hour I wake up to the Lord
to get his word, and one of theways I do it, um, is by writing
devotionals.
Um, I love, I love to write,man, and, uh, the Holy Spirit
(02:13):
just really ministers to me andhe's been calling me for a while
now to get up earlier and, uh,I finally answered a call, but I
wasn't always obedient to iteither, yeah, but my life has
looked so much more rich nowbecause of it.
Speaker 1 (02:28):
Yeah, there's something about that early
morning hour, brother Frankie,before the house gets stirred
and woken, you know, for thosewho have children, you know what
I'm talking about.
It's that time, while everyoneis still sleeping, that you can
really get up early and justthink, you know, or even maybe
before the spouse startsstirring around and moving and
(02:50):
causing your attention to betaken off of what you're doing
and maybe onto what they'redoing.
I started to study a little bitthis topic of first fruits in
the Bible.
Right, and the first fruitbiblically refers to a yield
from crops and it symbolized acouple things.
It symbolized their dedicationto God that they were going to
(03:10):
offer this first fruit offering,and it also symbolized a
gratitude towards God that hehad provided them the
opportunity to have a fruit, youknow, and to offer the first
fruit, right, so it was a timeof thanksgiving for his
provision.
So listen to the following verse, my friends.
It's found in Exodus 23, 19.
(03:30):
If you got your Bibles, exodus23, 19 says this the best of the
first fruits of your ground youshall bring into the house of
the Lord, your God.
All right, so that's Exodus 23,19.
I'm gonna read it again thebest of the firstfruits of your
(03:52):
ground you shall bring into thehouse of the Lord, your God.
So a question that I just wantus to ask ourselves, just a
little inventory question hereare we giving God our absolute
best of our day, our absolutebest first thing in the morning?
And let me say this before weget any deeper If we are not
careful, we are going to takethe best of our morning, brother
Frankie.
We're going to take the best ofour morning and instead of
giving it to God, instead ofgiving that best quiet time to
(04:14):
God, we're going to divide it upand we give God a little bit
and we give ourselves a littlebit, we give other people a
little bit and instead of givingthat first fruit to the Father,
other people a little bit.
And instead of giving thatfirst fruit to the Father,
instead of going deeper into ourstudy, deeper into our prayer
time, we move on to somethingelse before our day gets going
(04:34):
and we really get things out offocus.
So I'm not saying that wecannot do multiple things in our
morning, don't get me wronghere.
But we should not sacrifice thebest morning.
Don't get me wrong here.
But we should not sacrifice thebest.
We should not give up the earlyquiet time in our home in order
to get other things done.
First we need to take the bestand give it to God.
What you take, brother Frankie.
Speaker 2 (04:55):
Amen.
It's amazing how the Spiritworks, man, because I got Exodus
23, 19 written in my notes here.
Come on, man, look at that.
But this one came out of theNIV.
I'm just going to read theverse too, because it reads just
slightly different.
It says bring the best of thefirst fruits of your soul to the
house of the Lord, your God.
And as you're sitting therebringing that up, man, I'm
thinking about soul of the heart, yeah, you know.
(05:16):
So how can one not give thefirst fruit back when you
understand that it is his wordthat changed the soul of your
heart?
Yeah, and it's his.
And his word is the seed too.
Ain't nothing wrong with thatseed, man?
We, that seed is perfect, yeah,but a lot of times, when we put
it inside of our hearts andminds, if it doesn't produce
fruit to begin with, thenthere's something wrong with the
(05:38):
soul, yeah, so, right heresaying, um, the first fruits of
your soul, yeah, bring, bringthe best of it to him.
Speaker 1 (05:44):
Yeah, that's so good.
I was just talking to ouryoungest son, josiah, he's 13.
And I w I was giving him justkind of like this word picture
of first fruits and and we wereactually doing a little study.
He and I were doing a littlestudy in James, chapter one, and
we were just talking about theimportance of some things and
and and and the topic kind ofkind of pushed over in the
(06:04):
chapter one and we were justtalking about the importance of
some things and and and, and thetopic kind of kind of pushed
over in the first fruit.
And I was telling him I was likeremember when we used to plant
a garden and you kind of youcoming out of the winter into
the spring, it's been a longtime since you had that fresh
tomato, you know what I meanRight on the plant.
And I was like remember when weplant that plant and how you
have to really work it.
(06:25):
You got to work the soil, yougot to take care of the plant,
you got to fertilize it, you gotto water it, you really got to
love it.
You know what I mean.
You really got to put love andnurture that thing.
You do have to nurture it.
Yeah, and I was like every day,remember how we would go out
there.
We would check like just thecondition of the plant.
And then all of a sudden you'veseen this little green baby
tomato on there and you watchthis thing like like you know,
(06:46):
like you are invested and it'sbecause the truth is you are,
that's right and you watch thisgreen little tomato get bigger
and larger and larger and largerand then it starts to change
color, you know, and you're likehey, can't pick it just yet, it
ain't right yet.
Can't pick it just yet, itain't right yet, until, finally,
you know that it is at the spotwhere it's ready to end up on
your sandwich.
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2 (07:06):
Hey bro, how long is it before you put a fence around
that thing too?
Yeah, no, you're absolutelyright, because you don't want to
see something.
Come eat that thing that you'vebeen growing, you know?
Speaker 1 (07:16):
Yeah, you want to protect it right, absolutely, so
we could get into this.
We're to protect our firstfruit time with the Lord.
Protect our first fruit timewith the Lord.
Put the phone away, praise theLord, unplug the phone, you know
.
Turn it off close the laptop.
You know what I mean.
Hey, tell your spouse this ismy quiet time.
If you're getting up, that'sgreat.
Go have your quiet time, butmake sure you don't interrupt my
quiet time.
And eventually maybe even havequiet time together, right, but
(07:47):
I need my quiet time with theLord.
So eventually that tomato getsto the point where it can hit
the sandwich.
And I was telling him how youknow, later on in the season you
don't get as excited aboutthose tomatoes because you
already had the first.
You know.
So that first fruit is soprecious it really is.
And that's where I'm at on thistopic of giving that first hour
that we're awake, or that first30 minutes wherever somebody's
(08:09):
at in their personal time withthe Lord.
Right now, gotta get that firstfruit over to God.
Brother Frankie, here's the dealwhen it comes to our quiet time
with the Lord.
It's just my personalconviction.
We should not get up from ourquiet time until we feel full.
(08:29):
I'm a big believer in that.
I like that, bro.
We should not get up from thetable until we feel full, just
like at the breakfast table, thelunch table, the dinner table.
We don't want to get up till wefeel satisfied.
That's right, you know, can Ihave some more of that please?
You know what I'm saying.
Can you pass that?
(08:49):
Please Pass some red potatoesover here.
Yeah, you know so like we don'tget up from the physical table
until we feel satisfied, untilwe feel full, and I'm just going
to say that we should not getup from our devotional table
until we're full on the thingsof God.
Why?
Because just like physical foodprepares us for our day, the
spiritual food prepares us forthe day.
Speaker 2 (09:13):
You know I don't mean to cut you off, Go ahead
brother, I can kind of see wherethis is going, a little bit
it's like.
So what is your appetite forRight?
Speaker 1 (09:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Do you, do you get a little bit at the table when it
comes to like real food or freshfoods, or do you have an
appetite, really, for dessert?
You know things that aren't sogood for you, absolutely.
What do you think about that,bro?
Speaker 1 (09:34):
If we get up from the table.
It means if we get up earlyfrom the table, it means that
we've left things on the table,which means we didn't clean our
spiritual plate.
And how many of us grew up in ahome where your parents or
grandparents looked at you andsaid you ain't getting up from
that table until you finish thatplate.
So you know, I don't know whereyou're at with this, frankie,
(09:55):
but the Lord showed me this inmy life a long time ago.
And I'm not perfect at it, man.
By any means, I'm still workingon my personal relationship
with Jesus Christ.
We all are, but oftentimes wehave all been there.
Oftentimes we get up from thedevotional table, if you will.
We get up from it early becausewe didn't sit down early enough
(10:18):
to finish the meal and we gotto get up because we got things
we got to go, do I?
Speaker 2 (10:23):
was writing a devotion this morning, actually
talking about being afacilitator of blessing.
I was in Malachi Lord forgiveme for not remembering the
chapter or verse, but in therehe was talking about giving a
full tithe to the Lord and itsaid until the full tithe came
in, that your barns wouldn't beoverflowing or full.
(10:44):
And I think a lot of times inour life, brother, that we give
a partial tithe, wanting thefullness of the blessing.
And I've been there in my life,man, but that's, that's what
I've been seeing.
Doing these devotionals andwriting them is when I first
started I'm not going to lie,man, it only took like an
appetizer to word and I wassatisfied, yeah.
(11:04):
And I quickly realized I'm likeLord, like what, what?
What has happened with myappetite?
Like why, why do I hunger andthirst for things?
I mean, I'm, I'm ready to liketo put the word down, bro, and
hit the work to paint, yeah, butI'm not here to paint, yeah,
that's just.
That's just a thing that he'sallowed me to operate in so that
I could be around other peopleto facilitate the blessing.
What's your?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
take on it, brother.
No, I think you're exactlyright.
People give a little bit,whether it be tithe or time or
talent.
They give a little bit over tothe Lord, expecting to receive
the full blessing.
I want to take a moment anddive right into the Old
Testament, brother Frankie.
(11:44):
Leviticus 23.14 says that nograin was to be harvested at all
until the first fruits offeringwas brought to the Lord.
So think about that.
No grain could be harvested atall until God was first offered
up the first fruits that he wasworthy of.
So, in other words, you're notgoing to eat from this field,
(12:06):
people, right?
You're not going to eat fromthis field because you won't
harvest this field until thefirst fruits, the best of the
field, come to God, right?
So think about that Before yougo to work, before you go to
work in this field for yourself,before you reap a reward or a
return for yourself.
You got to give God thanks withthe first fruits of the field.
(12:28):
So, brother Frankie, I've beenguilty of leaving the house in
the morning wanting to get thereturn of the field, but not
giving God first fruits first.
You ain't alone, you know,because I got a big day planned
right, or because I wasn'tfeeling it, or because I wasn't
feeling good, or because I wastired, because I stayed up late
night before watching the biggame on TV, right, and it's all
(12:50):
me stuff, which means it's allme problems.
You know what I mean.
So I'm just, for whateverreason, ready to get out the
door, ready to get the day going.
I'm looking to receive theharvest of the day when I leave
from the house, but I haven'tyet given God the first fruits
of the day.
Man.
And I think that that pieceright there in Leviticus is so
huge because it's days like thatthat I've got to force myself
(13:12):
to slow down and remember totruly get with God.
It reminds me of this scenarioof a toll booth.
It used to be before smart tagtechnology that you actually had
to stop at the toll booth.
You actually had to hand moneyover to an attendant if you did
not have the exact change andthere would be an actual verbal
(13:34):
exchange with a real live person.
But now you can avoid theinteraction altogether.
You don't even have to slowdown too much.
You could just like with asmart tag man, you could just
roll right through that thing,right, you can simply blow right
through it and the people stillget the money, but there's zero
(13:54):
interaction.
That's right, so we're notcareful.
Our Bible time can look justlike that toll booth experience
with a smart tag we blow rightthrough it with little to zero
interaction with God, and Ithink that's really dangerous,
man, when we have a quiet time,when we have a time where we're
(14:15):
really going to get into a Biblestudy, but there's little to no
interaction with God.
Speaker 2 (14:20):
Yeah, Brother, I was on the way over here today.
I had already spent a littletime trying to prepare for this,
but, man, the Lord justquickened in me while I was
driving to your house to recordI love avocado, I love it, bro.
But every time we go to thestore, man, I'll get like three
or four.
Yeah, them bad boys will go badif.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
I get a hold of them quick, right yeah.
Speaker 2 (14:44):
So what the Spirit ministered to me on the way over
is like, like an avocado.
You only have so much timebefore it starts to turn on you.
Yeah, um.
And there's times too when hewas ministering to me that, like
that avocado, if you ate itearlier in the week it would
have been good, but if you waitto friday and saturday, that
thing's starting to changecolors, it's starting to mix.
(15:07):
It don't look green, no more.
You know, don't taste the same,it don't taste the same.
But what?
What he was ministering to mewas this that avocado and that
representation, what we justexplained, that's what your day
looks like.
So in the morning, if you diveinto the word spend the first
fruits of the day first thing inthe morning with him, it'll
look the Word spend the firstfruits of the day first thing in
the morning with him, it'lllook like a green avocado.
But come back later that day,come back that evening when
(15:30):
you've spent all your firstfruits on everything else and
you're going to have that mixedavocado that's just trash worthy
.
Speaker 1 (15:36):
Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
It's trash worthy?
Speaker 1 (15:38):
Absolutely, because it's been weathered.
It's weathered, bro, it's beenweathered.
It's weathered, bro, it's beenweathered.
I shared an analogy a few weeksago at church, while preaching
of a pie.
And you know, you have one lastpiece of pie in the
refrigerator, so you spend allday at work.
You come home, you go to get it, you pull down the box and you
look and the only thing left isa small piece of crust in the
(16:00):
pan.
And how upset you'd be right,how disappointed, right.
Imagine how God feels, brotherFrankie, when what we offer him
in our lives is not the entirepie it's not even half the pie,
it's not even a slice of the pie, but it's the crust.
It's the crust, and sometimesmaybe not even that.
You know what I mean.
(16:21):
So let me explain for a moment.
You wake up in the morning withintentions to pray, with
intention to study God's wordand spend time with God Almighty
.
But you were really tired soyou slept in saying oh God,
forgive me, father, I will meetwith you at lunch.
I will get with you on my lunchbreak.
We've all been there before.
Right, at my lunch break I'mgoing to move to a quiet place
(16:41):
and have devotions, except whenlunch comes.
You've already had the busynessof that first piece of your
workday.
So you get wrapped up inconversation or playing a game
on your phone, surfing theInternet or the socials, and you
say to God you know what Godforgive me, father, but I'm
going to do devotions when I gethome.
Problem with that?
(17:02):
Is sounds like a great idea.
But you get home, brotherFrankie, and there's chores that
got to be done, maybe got toclean up a little bit from where
you left so quickly thatmorning.
You left a little mess.
The house needs to be picked up.
And then, right after that man,sooner or later, dinner's
coming fast, you know, yeah.
So then you say, okay, god,after dinner.
Father, forgive me, but I'mgoing to do this after dinner
(17:24):
and we're going to have time.
But then you get caught up infront of the TV or watching that
game, or listening to thatprogram or that podcast, or
doing what you're doing, and yousay, all right, god, I'm going
to do when everybody goes to bed, because the house is just too
noisy right now.
Forgive me, god, I'll do it,I'll do it when everybody goes
to bed.
Then everybody goes to bed,right, the house gets quiet, and
you lay down and you're tootired to remain focused for very
(17:45):
long, start to feel a littleguilty about it.
So you simply say, oh, forgiveme, father, I'll do it tomorrow
morning.
And yes, my friends, at thatpoint, that's when we're giving
God the absolute crust.
There's 24 hours in a full day,and yet we've chosen, we've
elected.
Our choice is to give God thecrust.
So, my friends, god desiresmore than crust, he desires more
(18:09):
than a slice, he desires morethan a half, he desires the
first fruits of our lives, andhe alone is worthy of it all.
Speaker 2 (18:16):
He's more worthy than that rotten avocado that we
give him, brother.
Or that little bit of crustlike he was describing yeah,
given brother.
Or that little bit of crustlike you was describing, yeah,
brother, what's your take on?
Like what modern day firstfruits would look like for the
listener?
Speaker 1 (18:32):
Yeah, so today we're sitting here talking about the
angle of first fruits.
Is, you know, the first fruitin the morning, right?
But there are other things,there are other things to.
To me it would be the first ofwhatever you know.
So so I look at the tithe.
Tithe meaning 10%.
Yeah, uh, to me that's anotherfirst fruit.
(18:53):
It's a first fruit of my, of myincome.
You know, there's, there's, sothere's so many different things
that that we could, that wecould give over to God.
I mean, even when we just jumpinto something, I don't, I don't
like, I don't like jumping intomuch of anything without prayer
.
So I'll give you a perfectexample.
This isn't just to boast me up,I'm just answering the question
.
Yeah, absolutely, if my familygets in a vehicle and we're
(19:16):
going to the store right, and wegot to go spend money we're
going school shopping for thechildren, right, so we
homeschool, but our oldest isaway at college.
Just the other day we went backto school shopping for him for
clothes we get in the car.
The first thing we do beforethat thing hits reverse is I'm
praying, I'm giving God thefirst fruit of that time in
(19:40):
prayer, like Lord, we are takingthe next five hours, however
long it's going to be, and we'regoing out here and we're
spending money that you haveblessed us with.
That's right, and I don't wantto be frustrated.
I'm not a big shopper.
You know what I mean.
I don't like shopping, but atthe end of the day, before we
even move, I'm going to take thefirst piece of that five hours.
(20:02):
I'm going to take the firstpiece of it and I'm going to go
to God in prayer that God wouldprotect us, that we would honor
God even in public, that wewould be the light of Christ
shining and this may sound crazyman, but I do it all the time.
Even for going to groceryshopping man, I'm asking God to
just bless us with deals, blessus with sales.
Speaker 2 (20:20):
You know what I mean.
Absolutely Nothing wrong withthat.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
No, brother.
So so that's a whole notherpiece of first fruit.
Thanking.
You know, before we, before weleave, before we go on vacation,
before we even hit it inreverse to back out of the of
the driveway, I pray over thevacation, I pray over the family
.
I'm giving God the very firstof that trip.
So, so there's so many ways youcan look at first fruits.
(20:46):
You know so many ways.
You just pull up to your joband you know you're getting
ready to work the next eighthours.
Take some time and pray.
Take some time and pray.
I did that.
I'm going to share a quicktestimony.
I did that one particular placeI was working and it was like
1.30 in the morning you know,two in the morning, it was
(21:08):
really early and I'm servicingsome vending machines at the
time inside of a really largewarehouse and I pull up into the
parking lot and I just I backedthe work truck in there and I
just sit in the work truck asI'm getting ready to start my
day and I just start praying,having a time of prayer, I'm
(21:30):
giving God my first fruit rightthere before I start the work
day.
It's the first fruit of my workday.
Speaker 2 (21:35):
Nice.
Speaker 1 (21:36):
And at the end of the building, which was probably a
few hundred yards, there was atoll booth there.
Not a toll booth, it was aguard shack.
It looked like a toll booth butit was a guard shack.
And when I'm done having myprayer time, I get out the work
truck and all honor, glory,credit and praise to god alone.
Brother.
I start walking towards thatguard shack because I had to
check in, to go in the buildingand service these vending
machines and I think I only hadto go there like once every
(21:58):
couple weeks.
I didn't even know who theguard was.
They rotated all the time.
Right, I'm walking towards thisguard shack.
It's 1.30, two o'clock in themorning, it's dark, middle of
the night it's dark and when Iget to the guard shack the guard
opens up the windows.
A lady.
She says you gotta be aChristian and I said well, yeah,
I'm a servant of the Lord.
(22:19):
I said do you mind me askinghow do you know that?
She said because I just watchedyou walk all the way across
that parking lot.
And she said I could tell adifference in you just while you
walked.
Wow, she said I could see adifference in just how you
carried yourself.
Wow, well, can I just say thatthere's nothing special about me
, but there's something specialabout the Lord who lives in me,
(22:40):
amen, the Holy Spirit of Godthat lives in me and lives in me
, the Holy Spirit of God thatlives in me.
And she saw the light of thepresence of God.
She saw my demeanor had changedsimply because I just spent
time I had given a first fruitof my day, my workday in that
truck.
And as I exited that prayertime and got out the truck, she
could see impact that giving Godmy first fruit had over my life
(23:03):
.
I believe she saw your appetitetoo, bro hunger and thirst.
When Jesus was preaching at theSermon on the Mount, he said
blessed are those who hunger andthirst for righteousness, for
they will be satisfied, amen.
So that's a question.
You know, we've kind of talkedabout food here today just as an
analogy, you know.
But what do we hunger for, amen, brother?
What do we thirst for?
(23:24):
But what do we hunger for, amen, brother?
What do we thirst for?
Are we wanting to give God ourbest?
Are we hungering for that firstfruit hour, for that first
fruit time?
And I'm going to say this themore serious we become about
that first fruit time, givingGod our first.
Amen, brother, the more we wantto keep going to it and
spending time in that firstfruit season.
(23:44):
Amen, brother, the more we wantto keep going to it and
spending time in that firstfruit season Amen brother.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
I want to share a verse, brother, because I can
see that this leads to like whatthe progressions of what first
fruits are and like yourappetite mindset.
But the Spirit gave me thisLuke 6, 38.
Give and it will be given toyou.
Good measure, pressed down,shaken together, running over,
will be put into your lap, forwith the measure you use, it
(24:11):
will be measured back to you.
And I'm just here to remindanybody today, including
ourselves, that you can't affordnot to give.
You can't afford not to giveGod your first fruits because
he's going to put it back inyour lap.
But it's not meant for you tostore into your storehouse.
It's to be stored up so thatyou can give to.
When the time of need comes forsomebody, you can give to them
(24:35):
If it's a legitimate need.
You know you have something togive to those that are in need
and I see that.
I see that taking place in mylife.
So no longer and I'll be honest, bro, I'll confess this that
there was a time that I wasgoing out casting seed so that I
could reap my harvest.
The only issue with that iswhen I dove deeper into the Word
(24:55):
, I realized that God is theLord of the harvest, so he
dictates and determines how it'smeasured and given back.
And I just want to warn anybodyout there today that if they
think that they can sow seedsand and all this for their own
storehouse, that God doesn'toperate like that.
Speaker 1 (25:11):
Yeah, that's so good, bro, it's just like that, that,
that that passage that I readin Leviticus earlier.
We have to give our father thefirst fruit before we go reap
anything in the field.
Praise the lord, and we don'twant to get that backwards, you
know, but, but, but there'schristians out there that'll try
to do that.
You know they'll leave thehouse and they'll go reap what's
(25:34):
out in the field, but theyhaven't honored god almighty
with the first fruit of theirday, amen.
So that's going to be a wrap ontoday's episode of giving God
our first fruits and, as we'vementioned a couple of different
things of what that looks like,I believe it's going to give the
listeners a lot to consider, alot to think about.
But, brother, if you'll closethis in prayer, it'd be an honor
(25:56):
, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (25:58):
Father, we just come to you today and we thank you
that we have an opportunitytoday to give you back the first
fruits that belong to you.
Father, I ask, in the name andthe blood of Jesus, that you
will forgive us, lord, for whenwe haven't done this, for when
we don't do this.
And, father, maybe today thelistener is riding down the road
, headed to work or has alreadystarted their day and they
(26:19):
haven't given the first fruits.
I'm here to remind you todaythat God is saying do it again.
Do it.
Do it If I give you another day, do it tomorrow.
Or even give me that avocadothat's rotten or that crust of
the pie, because at least whenyou give that back unto me, it's
what I've given unto you.
(26:39):
But I want more than that and,lord, I just thank you that
you're a God who satisfies, butyou're also a God who allows us
to hunger and thirst for yourword, god, because it's only
your word that will satisfy usat all, god.
So I thank you for the firstfruits that you've given us.
I thank you for today and thismessage, lord, and I pray, god,
(27:00):
that you would take this messagebeyond today, beyond Sunday,
and that you would help us totruly apply it to our lives,
because it will change our livesif we walk in it.
We love you, lord.
We ask all these things in yourmighty name, amen.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Amen and amen, Amen Until next time on Beyond Sunday
.
God bless and honor the Lordwith the first fruits that he's
worthy of.
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