Day 4: Proverbs 3:9

“Honor the Lord with your possessions and with the first produce of your entire harvest…”



We like stuff. Lots of stuff. We can’t get enough of it. We watch commercials about stuff, go to stores to buy stuff, and build whole buildings to store stuff when our own homes can’t hold all of our stuff. God doesn’t really like stuff. He loves you. He wants you. He went a long way in order to have a relationship with you. Now that we have that relationship, God wants us to love Him, not stuff.


God wants us as leaders to ooze God in every area of our lives. He wants us to be countercultural in our thoughts and actions. One of these areas is our stuff. God wants us to honor Him with our stuff. How can we do that? We can use our stuff for Him. Think about it. Our money, our possessions, our time: All of these things can be used for God or they can be used for us. We make the choice. Most people live for their stuff. We have to find a way to make our stuff work for God.


Notice that God doesn’t just want us to use our possessions for Him, but He wants us to honor him with the “first produce”. Now, since most of us aren’t farmers, that doesn’t mean much to us. Here’s what He wants: God is saying that one way we worship God is to give the first portion of our money, time, and talents to Him. That means we serve Him, give money for His causes, and develop the gifts that He gave us. And we do it before we do anything else. Seriously, before anything else. Why? Because it lets other people see that we serve God and not ourselves. And people are drawn to leaders who are real about who they serve.


CHRISTIAN LEADERSHIP PRINCIPLE: God wants us to give our best to Him. Giving our first and best tells others about the God we serve.


Here’s a set of verses to meditate on today: Malachi 3:7-12.


Prayer: Father, you have given me everything. Teach me to give back to you. Give me the courage to show the world who I serve by how I spend my money, my time, and my talents. Teach me to be faithful through my giving and my spending. In Christ’s name, amen.