“Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the best part of everything your land produces.” Proverbs 3:9 (NLT)
When guests come over things change. Recently I was serving as the house grillmaster for our family and guests. As I was grilling the food there was one piece of food that looked particularly appealing to me. It just happened to be the best piece of meat on the grill. As I was tending to all of the food on the grill I kept going back to that piece and watching it more closely. It looked so good, way better than the other pieces. Then the thought hit me…that one is for your guest! I didn’t want that to be true, but I knew it was. My guest deserved the best.
This thought is true of our life in Christ as well. The Lord deserves our best and finest. We are to honor God with the “best part of everything” that our life produces. The times in which Proverbs was written were agricultural. The context was that of crops, flocks, and herds. In our context we are more product and services driven. Our context is that of shops, stocks, and the web. In our modern-day context we need to rethink what the “best part of everything is.” It certainly still means our wealth – no matter how unwealthy we think we are. The things we produce are more intangible now than in Solomon’s time, but they are still real. Our everything is very different now, but it is still to be offered to the Lord.
So in our reality we are to offer the best part of our everything – our time, our energy, our thoughts, our family, our finances, our faith – to the Lord. We are to think of God first when we are calendaring our week, planning our family time, and managing our finances. We are to give God the best part of everything. It takes intentional effort, energy, and focus to accomplish this goal. It is what we are asked to do.
The amazing thing about this notion of offering the best part of everything is it is God’s idea. God did this first. God gave to all of creation the best part of everything God created. Think about it. Trees are perfect in form and function. Birds soaring on the breeze of a crisp blue sky are amazingly right. The sun warming your face while the ocean breeze flows through your hair feels spot on. God gives us the best part of everything God has to offer us. In the perfect example God, the Father, gave us Jesus, the Son. Jesus is the best part of everything God had to offer us.
So when it comes to living our life for God…give God the best part of everything. Do so because God did that for you. Give in this way because of the great sense of gratitude and joy you experience through God’s generosity toward you. Give the very best part of your everything and God promises to give you the very best part of everything.