Mensa Otabil - The Value of Honour
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Proverbs 3, verses 9 and 10, honor the Lord with your possessions and with the first fruits of all your increase, so your barns will be filled with plenty and your vats will overflow with new wine. Our relationship with God is based on honor. As a matter of fact, when you read the Bible, you’ll find that all the commandments of God are designed for us to show honor to Him and honor to other people. So when God says, for example, «You shall have no other gods besides Me,» it is so that we honor Him as the only true God. If He says, «You shall not steal,» it’s so that we honor the property of other people and do not dispossess them wrongly of what they have worked for. The laws of God are designed to bring honor, and in our passage today, the Bible says that we must honor the Lord. Here it gives us clear ideas of what we must do to honor God.
To honor simply means to offer something that is weighty and something that is worthy. It must be weighty; it must be worthy. So when I say I’m honoring you, what I give to you must have weight, it must have some depth to it, and it must be worthy; it must measure up to who you are. That is why the honor you give to one person is not the same honor you give to another person. The honor you give to a child may not be the same honor you give to the parent of that child. The honor you give to me is not the same honor you give to God because we have different weights; God’s weight is far bigger than I am-immeasurable. So when we are honoring God, we have to be able to weigh whether what we are doing truly represents the value of who God is.
The passage tells us that we must honor God with our possessions. In other translations, it says with your substance. Basically, your possessions are all that you possess or things that you have been able to acquire. So we honor God with the things that we have acquired. Of course, we honor Him for things we have not acquired, like our lives. We didn’t acquire our lives, but we honor God with our lives. When we work with our labor and acquire possessions, they also must be used to honor God. It then says we honor God with the first fruits of all our increase. The word «first fruits» means the best part, the topmost part, the most worthy part of a portion. So when we are honoring God with something, it has to be something that is weighty. How do we know it is weighty? Because it is the best part of what we have. We don’t give all the parts away and give the leftovers to God; that is not honoring God.
When I was a kid, we would go to church and give God the half penny or one pesos, and that is how we gave to God. We thought, well, you know, it’s church; you give what is leftover. What you couldn’t use goes to God. If God is the source of all that we have, then what we honor Him with must be the best of all that we have. So the best should not go to our television bills; the best should not go to other bills we pay. The best of what we offer to God must be better than everything we offer.
So honor the Lord with your possessions and with the first fruits of all your increase. Then He says when you do that, He will cause you to be filled, and He will cause you to have an overflow. Your barns will be filled with plenty. In other words, when you give to God, you never lack. It has been said that givers never lack, and you can never outgive God. So why don’t you obey this instruction and command from God to honor the Lord with all your possessions and with the first fruits of all your increase? If you try Him in that, your barns will be filled with plenty.
Let’s talk to God. Let’s pray. Say with me: Heavenly Father, all that I have is Yours. Teach me to honor You with the best of all I have. In Jesus' name, amen and amen.