Remembering Our Roots

Deuteronomy 26:1 "When you come into the land that the Lord your God is giving you for an inheritance and have taken possession of it and live in it, you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground which you harvest from you land that the Lord your God is giving you, and you shall put it in a basket, and you shall go to the place that the Lord you God will choose, to make his name to dwell there. And you shall go to the priest who is in office at that time and say to him, 'I declare today to the Lord your God that I have come into the land that the Lord swore to our fathers to give us.'"

This section of Deuteronomy goes on to say that the person is to recite the history of Israel beginning this way: "A wandering Aramean was my father ..."

I like this for two reasons. One: when God does good things for us we need to stop and give thanks. How often do we pray for things, God grants our prayers, then we just go on as if we should have gotten that answer all along. We forget that it is by God's grace and mercy that He brings these to us.

Giving a first fruit to the Lord might be spending some time in prayer or worship, or literally giving of the first of what benefit the Lord has given you and giving it back to him by donating to the Lord's work.

But then I also like the recitation of the story starting with "a wandering Aaramean." That was Abram, of course. Instead of "a great and mighty man of God," Abram is described as a "wandering Aaramean." That's us too. We should remember that we are nothing without the Lord working on our behalf.

We should never forget our humble beginnings, sinners in need of forgiveness wandering around lost in the world. And we should never forget to give God the first of all He gives us out of his grace.

Pastor Tom