Wisdom and Finances
Proverbs 3:9–10
9 Honor the Lord with your wealth
and with the firstfruits—the best part—of all your produce;
10 then your barns will be filled with plenty,
and your vats will be bursting with wine.
Wise living includes wise spending.
When we choose to follow Jesus, we choose to let Him be the Lord of our lives—our whole lives. While that is easy to pray, it is challenging to live when bills must be paid and things are desired. If you are anything like me, you may start negotiating in your head about how little you can give God while still keeping Him happy.
This is not the wise way.
Proverbs 3:9 calls us to honor God with our wealth by giving Him the first and best of what we produce. In an agricultural society, where life depended on the harvest, the people were commanded to give the first grains, grapes, and goods they gathered. After waiting weeks or months for fruit to be produced, the first items reaped were to be given away.
This required great faith.
Faith that more would come.
Faith that locusts would not devour the harvest.
Faith that there would be enough at the end of the season.
The wisdom we are given in the Word of God is to honor God with what we receive. Are you doing that? Are you honoring God with the fruit of your labor? Or, in the name of prudence, security, or even greed, are you building your own stockpile and offering God whatever is left over?
Firstfruits are not a simple or easy offering, yet this is the wise way presented to us.
Will you live wisely?
Finally, a blessing is promised here: barns filled and vats bursting. This passage assures us that God is the provider and that honoring Him is always wiser than trusting only in what we can accumulate. It is not a blank check promising that every faithful giver will become wealthy. It is an invitation to trust that God knows our needs and can provide what is necessary as we faithfully surrender to Him.
We can offer many “what if” scenarios and hypothetical conundrums, but my charge to you is this: Are you actually living in the “what if,” or are you simply trying to justify your unwillingness to release what you have?
Too often, we look for loopholes in order to rationalize our unwillingness to live rightly.
Wise living includes wise spending. God is not just concerned with your firstfruits or your tithe. God cares about how you spend 100 percent of your money, not just 10 percent.
Are you honoring the Lord with what you have?
