“When anyone offers a grain offering to the LORD, his offering shall be of fine flour. And he shall pour oil on it and put frankincense on it.”

Leviticus 2:1 (NKJV)

Yesterday our grandson Jay spent the day with us helping us do chores around the house. This involved some manual labor outside in the hot summer sun. As our t-shirts became wet with sweat, I told him, “This is what God meant when He told Adam that he would earn his bread by the sweat of his brow.” When you’re a PKK (pastor’s kid’s kid) you never know when you’ll get a random sermon!

Today we consider the second of five offerings—the grain offering. This makes me think about our pantry. We have containers of three different types of flour (all-purpose, bread and wheat). We have three different types of oil. Last I checked, we’re out of frankincense (put that on the shopping list). However, it would be relatively easy to make an offering according to the specifications in Leviticus 2 with the staples on hand. But imagine having to acquire these items in the wilderness. There were no supermarkets within walking distance. Where did they get the wheat or barley? Where did they find olive trees in the desert?

Gathering the raw materials for the grain offering involved sowing, cultivating and harvesting wheat. Then they would mill it by hand, crushing the kernels into fine flour. They would pick the olives and press them to obtain oil. Frankincense is a hardened gum-like material (resin) that comes from a certain tree. This was hard to acquire and expensive. Once they obtained all these items, they prepared them for the offering, which could be raw grain, baked in an oven, a pancake, or deep fried like a donut. Because so much work was involved, Bible scholars consider the grain offering to represent one’s service to the LORD.

Today there is no altar or priest to which we can bring such an offering, but we can dedicate our work to God.

“Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.”

Colossians 3:23–24 (NIV)

We offer our service to God by doing it well for His glory. When we give the Lord a portion of our income, we are sanctifying our work for His kingdom. We can do the same by giving our time to people in need. All these things are “holy sweat”, and they are in a sense our grain offering. Not only do we earn our bread by “the sweat of our brow,” but also our labor can bless God and others.

Whatever you do today, can you do it with the purpose of glorifying God and blessing others?

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