Fresh Fruit

My heart becomes heavy when I think about how many people have no self worth. Then I get angry towards those that prey on people's suffering just to make a quick buck.

I am always mindful of how awesome God's love is and how valuable we are in His eyes. I wish everyone could understand how great our God is. In thinking about how great God is, this verse came to mind:

James 1:18 – “Of his own will he brought us forth by the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures.”

I love this verse. Let’s face it; we live in a world where the value of a life is unbelievingly low. Realities like abortion, suicide, murder, depression, hate-crimes and so on prove that the value of the soul has become less and less important to us. Just listen to the news and think about the value that is placed on our fellow humans as each story unfolds. I would be willing to bet that there are times in your life that you have felt unimportant, depressed, down, out of sorts, worthless, lonely or abandoned. You might even feel all of those things all together right now. The world will not help you in this area either. Most things in life are evaluated in measurements of performance. The better you perform for them; the better of a person you are and the better people like you. If you fail, you can be sure it will be noted and you will be cast aside.

Those that understand this, use it to their advantage. Businesses spend thousands of dollars making people feel better about themselves so they will be more productive and bookstores are full of self-help books don't stay on the shelf very long. Prosperity preachers use this understanding to get rich. They tell you that your life will be better, people will like you and you can have all you want right now and if you become a Christian (Oh, and send them some money). The problem with this is that it simply is not true. Besides, all these things that the world promises are temporary and there is nothing in this world that is truly good. All of the above want to use you for their benefit and not yours, I promise you.

So what does this verse have to do with our value? Let’s break this verse down so you can see how much God loves the true believer. Notice that it is according to God’s will that He brought us forth. The term “brought forth” simply means to birth. I know this seems strange that God births people. However, He truly does and I will write more on that subject at a later time. I want you to see it is God who is creating the birth. This verse does not say, because you are… because you did… by your will… because of your performance…” or anything like that. It simply says God willed you to be born (spiritually). This birth happens by the “word of truth”. By the simple description, it is truth. The truth is The Word of God and The Word of God is Truth. Again, not performance based.

So what are we “born” as? Firstfruits. This is an amazing word. It is used in the Old Testament when speaking of offerings made to the Lord. The people of Israel were supposed to give of the firstfruits of what they had to God and the rest they kept for themselves. The word is a compound word derived from Apo, meaning of separation, and Archomai, meaning to begin; so firstfriuts means the beginning of a separation. I like this definition of Apo - of any kind of separation of one thing from another by which the union or fellowship of the two is destroyed. Go ahead and read that again (I had to).

The word picture of this verse goes something like this: God unconditionally wills the Christian to be borne by The Word of Truth as a beginning creature that is completely and totally separated from the unity or fellowship of sin. For obvious reasons, this excites me. The God of this universe chose me to be the beginning of His creation, a totally new creation. A creation that is nothing like the world. A creation that was chosen by Him, sustained by Him, separated by Him and loved unconditionally by Him. Dear Christian, I hope that you see your value. I hope you realize when the trials of this life come (and they will), when you feel like you can’t do anything right, when you are depressed, abandoned or alone, when you have been mistreated or abused; look to the One who is able to separate you from the things of this world and hold you close in His arms protecting you as a precious prize that He will give to His own Son at the end of this age. If you feel like the first paragraph of this blog describes you, please talk to someone about it; preferably someone who is a Firstfruit.