What is the First Fruits?

Did you know there is a different blessing associated with each month on the Hebraic Calendar?  Wouldn’t you like to have it in prayer form so you can pray it over yourself?  Well, that is what He asked me to do for you.

The rest of this post is an explanation of First Fruits, just in case you don’t know what that is.

If you do a search on this website, you will see that we’ve written, at one point or another, an explanation of each month on the Hebraic Calendar.

The difference between tithing and first fruits

Now the first time I heard about first fruits it sounded so confusing to me because I thought “isn’t the tithe the first 10% anyway?”  And let me tell you that I am not a “wagonist” (jumping on the band wagon because everyone else is doing it). Therefore, I just kept it simple did the tithing until I got further revelation on what the difference was between the two things.  Now that I can clearly see the difference, I started participating in first fruits.

Since I’m a teacher, I’m going to make this so clear to you that by the time you get to the end of this page you will fully understand what First Fruits is.

Let’s talk about First Fruit as opposed to Tithing.  Both have to do with giving but they are different.

A tithe is 10% of your income which you give to your local church. (Genesis 14:18-20, Hebrews 7:1-4).  This is a no brainer because it is easy to calculate and figure out.  Some people get tripped up on whether or not that is gross income or net, I say what feels right to you?

The first fruit on the other hand is giving your first of whatever God has blessed you with.  That’s the first on anything, so that means it’s not just money.

In the Old Testament since it was mostly agricultural here’s what that looked like…

(Nehemiah 10:35-37) “We obligate ourselves to bring the firstfruits of our ground and the firstfruits of all fruit of every tree, year by year, to the house of the Lord; also to bring to the house of our God, to the priests who minister in the house of our God, the firstborn of our sons and of our cattle, as it is written in the Law, and the firstborn of our herds and of our flocks; and to bring the first of our dough, and our contributions, the fruit of every tree, the wine and the oil, to the priests, to the chambers of the house of our God; and to bring to the Levites the tithes from our ground, for it is the Levites who collect the tithes in all our towns where we labor.”

They gave the first of everything to the Lord.  Why would they do that?

(Ezekiel 44:30) “The first of the ripe fruits and all the gifts brought to the Lord will go to the priests. The first batch of dough must also be given to the priests so the Lord will bless your homes.”

(Romans 11:16) “For if the firstfruit is holy, the lump is also holy; and if the root is holy, so are the branches.”

The bottom line is, if you give the first to God then the rest is under the blessings of God.

I know, you’re not a farmer, so now what?

How does the first fruit apply to you?

You ever wonder why Jewish people are so successful? I asked the Lord a few years after I was saved because I wanted to know what it is they are doing that I should be doing.  I figured it must be in the Old Testament because that is their bible.  So when I would read about all these offerings that they were taking to the temple I just thought “Wow, they give away a lot back then” However, my eyes would glaze over because what does bull offering, grain offering, oil offering and all of that have to do with today?  That was back then surely, they are not doing that today.  Can I tell you that they are…it just looks different.

Think about this, large stores do this all the time….  They open a new location, and they say the first 100 customers get this _____.  What is that?  That’s modern day first fruits.  You’re literally looking at it in society and you don’t even know it.  Because you thought this was a marketing gimmick, right?  No, this is ingrained in a Jewish person from birth.  Even if they are not religious Jews, they know that their ancestors said you are supposed to give away the first.  Give something away. If no seed is sown, no tree comes up out of the ground.

Now you and I who were grafted in (Romans 11:13-24), we don’t know this stuff because we never learnt is as children.  This is not natural for us; Therefore, we have to learn it and then do it to catch up to this blessing!  First Fruits is a spiritual principle, a spiritual law therefore it works regardless of who is doing it.  Since it is not natural for us, we have to participate in it intentionally.  Then as it becomes second nature for us, we teach it to our children and now it becomes natural for them.

You give the first of something.  It is different for everyone because we’re all starting something new or producing something new.  Sometimes it is money other times it’s goods, services.  You give it so that the rest of what you have is blessed.  First Fruit is like a down payment on a future blessing.

You know that scripture in Malachi that we use all the time for tithing? (Malachi 3:8-10).  It doesn’t just say that you are robbing God of tithes, it says tithes and offerings.  This is a type of an offering.

This is tithing…

earn it ————->>>> give 10% after

You give the 10% on what you already received.

This is first fruit

Give 1st$$<<<<<————- earn it after

You give it first by faith as a way to praise God for what will come after.  It’s giving in advance.

Some examples for you…

Let’s say that the Lord told you to write a book, your first fruit would be you giving away the first copy of your book to the person God told you to give it to.  Now, let’s say you’re Joel Osteen, one book is nothing!  LOL  Therefore, his first fruit might be giving away a copy of that book to everyone at a conference where he’s speaking because he can afford to give away that many copies.  It all depends on the person. There’s no 10% rule here.

People give away their first paycheck of the year.  Some give 10% of the first month’s income on their business.  January rolls around, you have a business then you give away something from your business – cash or kind – that is the first fruit for that business.

What do you do with the first fruit of your day?  Who gets that?  Facebook. Instagram. Yelling at your kids?  God wants to be the first one on your mind.  The first one you give thanks to and dedicate the day to Him so that the rest of your day is holy.  That would be giving the First Fruit of your time.

Your first fruit can go to anyone as the Lord directs.  He could tell you to give that money to a family that you know is struggling and needs it.  This is why you need to pray before you decide who gets it.  And, it doesn’t affect what you’re giving to your church because this is not tithing.

First fruit is intentional giving.  First Fruit requires praying about where to sow it.

Once when I was upgrading my car, instead of trading in the vehicle and using it as a down payment on the new vehicle the Lord had me give the old vehicle away.  I gave it to a lady that was driving around on a Sunday morning in a rented vehicle picking up other people to take them to church.  He specifically told me to give her my car.  Once I did that, within a few months the new car was paid for in full.  Because there was a blessing on the new vehicle. The down payment wasn’t to go to the car dealership it was to go to that lady.

So, it’s not always cash even though what you give does have value because it does cost you something.

Let’s say you have no money, you can pick a day at the beginning of the month and pray for others.  Prayers are powerful.  And, believe it or not very few people can sit down for a time of prayer and just pray for others.  Most people when they think of praying it becomes “me first”.  What if your First Fruit was to pray for everyone else and not yourself for one whole day?  This is a sacrifice, and it is harder than you think, try it!

Even Jesus was likened to a first fruit offering

(1 Corinthians 15:20-23) “But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive. But each in his own order: Christ the firstfruits, then at his coming those who belong to Christ.”

The First Fruit Blessing associated with the Hebraic Calendar

Yes!  God never abolished this Calendar, and it is still being used in Israel today.  When you understand this calendar, you will start to see that some of the things that happen to you in life are actually aligned with what God said would happen on His calendar.

The Hebraic Calendar is lunar, so the dates change every year according to the cycle of the moon.  The months have 29 or 30 days. Some years there are 12 months and others 13 months because instead of having a leap year they actually have a whole additional month.

When I started studying the months this was another thing that seemed very confusing to me.  It took quite some time to make sense of it.

**side note – Do you know how new age teachings sound awfully close to Christianity?  Because the basis of the new age teaching is Christianity except, they strip it of Christ and make it all about you doing something within yourself and without God.  Well, that same thing happens in Judaism except this is known as kabbalah. It’s new age Judaism.  And, unless you know this it all looks the same. So if you start to study this just remember I told you about it.  Once the site says anything about kabbalah, you may not want to follow that. It starts off sounding good until you realize it goes way way waaaaay outside of the Old Testament, and that’s when you see that it’s a self-help thing and God was left out of the picture.  Therefore, not all Rabbis, are the same. You’ve been told. **

I realized that my life was aligning with the calendar.  How is that even possible, unless the author, God, is actually in control of the timing of things.  Things that were happening in my life were actually described on the calendar.  And no, it’s not the horoscope.   There was this one particular month when my life would either go north or south, and it said so on the calendar.  Except, I didn’t know this for years.  I had no clue that I could actually pray things north every single time.  Sometimes the blessing is a warning to be careful with our choices and decisions for the month.  I also noticed that I would have dreams that would align perfectly with what God was doing on the calendar.  It was at this moment that I realize this is still very much relevant today and we need to actually know this as Christians.  Not because we are trying to be Jewish but because the author of the calendar is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and He’s the same one we’re all serving.

I believe this will be a wonderful eye-opening experience for both of us.

Please remember that God can work in and out of seasons, so don’t think that this is the only time He can bless you.  This is just a guide that can help you make better decisions each month.

Here is the first month January – Sh’vat

Blessings