Those who don't understand principles need rules.

For instance, the proverb, "Honor the Lord with your wealth, with the firstfruits of all your crops" (Proverbs 3:9), begins with a principle: Honor the Lord. As such, it is a trifle vague.

We cannot manufacture honor

Honoring God has nothing to do with throwing a sum of money into an offering envelope. It has to do with reverent awe. It is a grateful acknowledgment that all we are and all we have belong to God. We want what God wants. We honor God when we use God's gifts his way.

Job understood what it meant to honor God when, in the darkest hour of his life, he confessed, "The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away; may the name of the Lord be praised" (Job 1:21).

We cannot manufacture honor.

It's one of those gifts the Holy Spirit gives at conversion. But the "C" word--conversion--is not in the vocabulary of the sinful flesh. Conversion means death to our old, self-centered way of thinking. When faced with church budgets, our flesh perceives conversion as too time-consuming, uncomfortable, and impractical.

We dare not manufacture rules

It would be much simpler if we ignored the principle of honoring God and manufactured a rule: "This morning we will all take $50 out of our wallets and throw it into the offering plate." There! That was much easier. While some may feel a little indignant that God got more than his fair share, they could go home with the false security that they've done what God wants. God's honor, may have nothing to do with it.

When a heart honors God as its provider, protector, and Savior, giving the firstfruits, giving the very best, comes naturally. Abel didn't need to be told what firstfruit giving was all about. His heart belonged to God, so he gave God the "fat portions from some of the firstborn of his flock."

Cain, on the other hand, had an unbelieving and ungrateful heart--and it showed. He gave "some of the fruits of the soil." It would have been much easier for Cain if God had given him a rule: "Give me that carrot, that pepper, and that cabbage, and you will have done your duty."

But God doesn't eat coleslaw. He is simply looking for evidence of a loving and trusting heart.

We need God to create a clean heart

"Create in me a pure heart, O God. . . . You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it. . . . The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. . . . Then there will be righteous sacrifices . . ." (Ps. 51).