Harvest Season: Set Heart Down Before The Lord

Deuteronomy 26 : 1 – 11

1. The word of the Preacher, the son of David, King in Jerusalem said: “to everything there is a season, and time to every purpose under the heaven” (Ecclesiastes 3 : 1). C.S Lewis said: “There was time when God called and selected one particular nation and spent several countries hammering into their heads the sort of God He was – that there was only one God and that He cared about right conduct. Those people were the Jews. There was abundant evidence in the Bible that showed the LORD called His nation (Mere Christianity, p.49). After the long journey, it was time for the chosen one to dwell in the land that the LORD had given. It was time to “relax” for while.
2. Sometimes that was not easy to live in the new land. We would find the different circumstances and it could be worse problems. We felt a bit strange at first because we weren’t used to a new tradition, new religion, new way of thinking and new way of life. But it wasn’t Israel,because God had provided them with everything. Here they were, in the new land, better land, and there was nowhere else they would rather be. That was new land, it means new start and new plans.That day, in the new land, the God’s chosen nation was happy safe and secure. One reason for their happiness was that the LORD provided the basic necessities. They would be happy as long as they obey the LORD. That was why the Lord, God warned Israel not to forget the story of salvation that God had given through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob their ancestors.
3. Our text today is the sound of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and all the fathers. The sound that called and led the people of Israel to remember the LORD and came to His holy place. Brought Him the first of the fruit of the ground and shall set it down before the LORD. TheBible said to set down the first all of the fruit of the ground. What does it mean today? (1) Text: “shall put it in a basket.” It is nothing to do with how much that we can set it down before the LORD. It is nothing to do how often we set it down before the LORD in a day, month and year. The first of the fruit of the ground means set it down before the LORD all the best things we have. So, what is the best thing we have today? Sometimes words are hard to find when we are looking for the perfect one to decide what is the best one that we have. How do we know how to set down the best thing before the LORD if we don’t know the best we have ever had. Think about what Jesus have said about the poor widow offering. The poor widow has put in everything she had, all she had to live on (Mark. 12 : 42 – 44). Now, we know that the best thing we have is our lives.All the LORD wants from us is our heart.
4. The commandment was not only to set down the offering, but worship before the LORD your God (Det. 26: 10). Can we define worship today? We can say, worship is to sing a song for God. We usually associate worship with music and devotion. Worship began with Abraham’s obedience to God before he went to offer his son. Abraham said: “stay here with the donkey, I and the lad will go over there; and we will worship and return to you.” Worship is to surrender heart and mind to the LORD completely. That is not easy. That is why we need to focus on what the Lord had said. The Proverbs said: “keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs for life.”