🍐What is  Firstfruits & is it same as Tithe?🍎
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🍇Proverbs 3:9-10 ESV
9  Honor the Lord with your wealth   and with  the firstfruits of all your produce;
10 then your  barns will be filled with plenty,  and your vats will be bursting with wine.
[COMMENT:  Promise of Overflowing Abundance]
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🌿 On 21st May, we had a teaching on Firstfruits. We are told we can lock ourselves in a covenant with God on what He promised on giving of Firstfruits. Here’s some further scriptural references to understand what is this Firstfruits giving:-

🌿(1) God promised that if we honor Him with our firstfruits, He will lock Himself with a covenant with us in Proverbs 3:9-10. He will cause our vats to overflow ; this speak of overflowing abundance. But what is the difference between Firstfruits and Tithe?
🌿(2) Malachi 3:10-11 explains that Tithe is to bring food to God’s house, which in NT context is the church. In return  God promised to rebuke the devourer for you , so that there will be no more needs. “Tithe” in the Hebrew Strong dictionary  mentioned it as one tenth. He promised there will be cessation of needs.

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🍇Malachi 3:10-11 ESV
10.Bring the full tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. And thereby put me to the test, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour down for you a blessing until there is no more need.
11.I will rebuke  the devourer for you, so that it will not destroy the fruits of your soil, and your vine in the field shall not fail to bear, says the Lord of hosts.
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🌿(3) The Lord explained what is Feast of Firstfruits to children of Israel in Lev23:9-14. It is a statute forever.

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🍇Lev23:9-14 ESV
9 And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, 10 “Speak to the people of Israel and say to them, When you come into the land that I give you and reap its harvest, you shall bring the sheaf of the firstfruits of your harvest to the priest, 11 and he shall wave the sheaf before the Lord, so that you may be accepted. On the day after the Sabbath the priest shall wave it. 12 And on the day when you wave the sheaf, you shall offer a male lamb a year old without blemish as a burnt offering to the Lord. 13 And the grain offering with it shall be two tenths of an ephah of fine flour mixed with oil, a food offering to the Lord with a pleasing aroma, and the drink offering with it shall be of wine, a fourth of a hin. 14 And you shall eat neither bread nor grain parched or fresh until this same day, until you have brought the offering of your God: it is a statute forever throughout your generations in all your dwellings.
[COMMENT: God’s everlasting statute on celebrating feast of Firstfruits once per year.]
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🌿(4)Moses again explain how to apply this in Deu26:1-15. In Deu26:2, it says give some of the fruits of the ground. So I don’t think it meant  giving away the first paycheck of the year to the Lord. I believe it meant a token of the first income you recieve.
🌿(5) The purpose for Firstfruits is explained in Deu 26:3-10; it says the children of Israel had once dwell in Egypt (NT=Kingdom of darkness) and by His grace & power, delivered and brought to land of milk & honey (NT=Kingdom of Christ /abundant life). Therefore the purpose of feast of Firstfruits is to celebrate once per year,  acknowledge our real source  is the Lord.
🌿(6) Note in Deu26:12-15, it explains the promises of Firstfruits is going beyond  giving of Tithe.
🌿(7) As we are in the New Covenant , many school of thoughts think that NT Christians do not need to obey  Feast of Firstfruits. But to those who believes God wil never negate  His promises,  we can  lock ourselves with His covenant  on  Feast of Firstfruits based on Deu26:1-15 , Proverbs 3:9-10 –  we shall rcvd overflowing abundance as He promised. It is not just cessation of needs, but overflowing abundance!

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🍇Deuteronomy 26:1-15 ESV
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, 2  you shall take some of the first of all the fruit of the ground, which you harvest from your 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 your God will choose, to make His name to dwell there. 3 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.’ 4 Then the priest shall take the basket from your hand and set it down before the altar of the Lord your God.
5 “And you shall make response before the Lord your God, ‘A  wandering Aramean was my father. And he went down into Egypt and sojourned there, a few in number, and there he became a nation, great, mighty, and populous. 6 And  the Egyptians treated us harshly and humiliated us and laid on us hard labor. 7 Then  we cried to the Lord, the God of our fathers, and the Lord heard our voice and saw our affliction, our toil, and our oppression. 8 And  the Lord brought us out of Egypt  with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great deeds of terror, with signs and wonders. 9 And he brought us into this place and gave us this land,  a land flowing with milk and honey. 10 And behold, now I bring the first of the fruit of the ground, which you, O Lord, have given me.’ And you shall set it down before the Lord your God and worship before the Lord your God. 11 And  you shall rejoice in all the good that the Lord your God has given to you and to your house, you, and the Levite, and the sojourner who is among you.

12 “When you have finished paying all  the tithe of your produce in the third year, which is  the year of tithing, giving it to the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, so that they may eat within your towns and be filled, 13 then you shall say before the Lord your God, ‘I have removed the sacred portion out of my house, and moreover, I have given it to the Levite, the sojourner, the fatherless, and the widow, according to all your commandment that you have commanded me. I have not transgressed any of your commandments,  nor have I forgotten them. 14  I have not eaten of the tithe while I was mourning, or removed any of it while I was unclean, or offered any of it to the dead. I have obeyed the voice of the Lord my God. I have done according to all that you have commanded me. 15  Look down from your holy habitation, from heaven, and bless your people Israel and the ground that you have given us, as you swore to our fathers, a land flowing with milk and honey.’
[COMMENT: Firstfruit is to acknowledge God is our source of blessings & providence].