TOKONAKI MA’ASI 7, 2026

TEUTALONOME 24-27; SENESI 4:1-7

We should never give God what is left over, but rather offer him the first and best of what he has provided.

‘Oku ‘ikai totonu ke tau foaki ki he ‘Otua ‘a e toetoenga, ka ke tau foaki ange ‘a e tu’ukimu’a mo e lelei taha ‘o e me’a kuo ne tokonaki.

We have to look back to creation to understand fully the importance of Deuteronomy 26:1-2:

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, 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, you and shall go to the place that the LORD your God will choose, to make his name to dwell there.

Genesis 1 and 2 tell us that God is the Creator of everything. As the Creator of everything, he owns everything. I am a painter. After I have gone to my studio and completed a painting, it belongs to me, because I made it. God, as Creator, is the rightful owner of all that is. This means he owns me and everything that I am and have. Nothing belongs to me; it all belongs to him.

As the Creator of everything, God not only owns everything, but he also determines everything's purpose. If you sit down to sew a garment, you don't start aimlessly, hoping that your sewing will turn into something. No, you sit down with a distinct purpose in mind. You make every stitch to accomplish that purpose. God not only owns everything, but he also has a purpose for everything he has created.

So when God asks his children to give him the firstfruits of their crops, he is not asking them to take what belongs to them and give it to him. He is asking them to return to him a portion of what already belongs to him. Nothing we own is ours to use however we choose to use it. It all belongs to God, and is to be stewarded as he directs. Now, this is important to understand: God does not want whatever is left over after we have satisfied ourselves with the fruit of our work. God wants us to make our offering to him first. When we do so, we acknowledge that all we are and all we have belong to him to be used as he pleases.

God is protecting his children from the idol of possession. He knows that the acquiring and maintaining of material things and the pleasure they give can rule our hearts and shape how we live. There's grace in this command to offer God our firstfruits. God is rescuing us from us, so that we can know the joy of worshiping the Creator rather than living in bondage to the creation. He made us. We belong to him. He is where true life is to be found. So, offer him your first and your best. You'll be glad you did.

 FALAITE MA’ASI 6, 2026

TEUTALONOME 21-23; 1 PITA 1:13-21

The biblical story marches slowly to a man hanging on a tree: Jesus, who died as our substitute, the perfect sacrificial Lamb.

Ko e talanoa ‘o e Tohitapu, ‘oku fononga mamalie ki ha tangata ‘oku tautau ‘i he ‘akau: ko Sisu, na’e pekia ko hotau fetongi, ko e Lami haohaoa na’e feilaulau.

I wake up every morning with hope and joy. It's not because I always feel great. As I write this, I am in unrelenting pain. Something has happened to my back, which makes everything I do painful. Getting out of a chair is torturous. Riding in a car is agonizing. But my hope and joy are not diminished. My hope is not based on what God has called me to do. It does not rely upon people's opinions of me or my financial security. My hope is not based on the fact that I am married to my hero or that I have four wonderful children. My hope really does look back to a tree, outside of the walls of an ancient city, where an innocent man willingly suffered the cruelest and most humiliating kind of death, crucifixion, for the sake of my forgiveness, my reconciliation to God, my adoption into his family, and my eternal place with him in glory. Jesus is my hope. Jesus is the source of my joy. His work on my behalf, his presence, and his grace-not my suffering, my work, or my family-define me. My chronic pain does not make me angry or bitter, because I am daily blown away by the knowledge of what he has done for me and of who I am in him.

In Deuteronomy 21 God gives directions for how to deal with a man who has committed a capital crime, that is, one punishable by death. Such a person is to be hanged on a tree. It's a hard passage to read, but it is there for our guidance and protection. This passage sits in the Old Testament to remind us that God takes sin seriously, so we better take it seriously too. In order to have a relationship with his people, God never ignores or minimizes sin. This passage has been retained to remind us that something has to happen that will allow sinners to have a relationship with a perfectly holy God.

Deuteronomy 21:22-23 points us to two trees. First, it looks back to the tree in the garden of Eden, where temptation and sin first entered the world and separated people from their Creator. Second, it looks forward to that tree on the hill of Golgotha, where Jesus willingly suffered and died for our justification and eternal adoption into the family of God. In Deuteronomy, one man hangs because of his sin; on Calvary, one man hangs for the sins of others. In Deuteronomy, one man suffers the penalty for his iniquity; on Calvary one man pays the penalty for multitudes. One tree is a tree of death; the other tree is, ultimately, a tree of life. On one tree hangs a man who has no hope; on the other tree a man's death gives eternal hope to a countless company of sinners.

We have hope because of what Jesus did on that tree, and because of what he continues to do for us with mercies that are new every day.

 TU’APULELULU MA’ASI 5, 2026

TEUTALONOME 17-20; HEPELU 1:1-2

We should never underestimate the magnificent, life-giving blessing that is ours by the fact that God speaks to us.

Mahu’inga ke ‘oua te tau ta’e tokanga’i ‘a e faufaua mo e tapuaki foaki mo’ui ‘oku tau ma’u ‘i he mo’oni ko eni; ‘oku lea ‘a e ‘Otua kiate kitautolu.

It doesn't take long in the biblical narrative for God to speak. After creating everything by the power of his word, God speaks directly to Adam and Eve (Gen. 1:27-28). Here are perfect people in a perfect world, with a perfect relationship to God, yet they are completely dependent on his words to make sense out of life, to be what he designed them to be, and to do what he created them to do. Shalom is shattered early in the redemptive story, when Adam and Eve decide to disobey the words of their Creator, to take their lives into their own hands, and to step outside of the boundaries that God had set for them.

If Adam and Eve, in perfection, were completely dependent on the word of the Lord, how much more were the children of Israel? They lived in a world full of evil, where lies abounded. They were about to enter a place where false gods would greet them at every turn and where magicians, sorcerers, and divinators would vie for their attention. They needed the true, pure, and trustworthy word of the Lord to cut through all the noise of false voices, so that they would not be deceived but would live as God had called them to live. It was a huge blessing, then, that God promised them not just one prophet, but a continuing line of prophet after prophet, so that God's truth and will would guide, protect, and correct them.

The LORD your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among you, from your brothers-it is to him you shall listen- just as you desired of the LORD your God at Horeb on the day of the assembly, when you said, "Let me not hear again the voice of the LORD my God or see this great fire any more, lest I die." And the LORD said to me, "They are right in what they have spoken. I will raise up for them a prophet like you from among their brothers. And I will put my words in his mouth, and he shall speak to them all that I command him." (Deut. 18:15-18)

What protecting, guiding, and correcting love! This promise means that God's people will never be without the word of the Lord, no matter who they are, no matter where they are, and no matter what they might face. As I read these words, I think of myself. I wouldn't have a clue as to who I am, without the word of the Lord. I wouldn't know how to live, without God's word. I wouldn't know what is true or false, apart from God's word. I would have no wisdom to offer were it not for the word of the Lord. I wouldn't know how to live with others, how to make decisions, or where to look for spiritual help and hope, were it not for the word of God. It's hard to think of a more important promise than this. And remember, this is a messianic promise. Jesus is God's final Word to us; his words and work are life to us.

 PULELULU MA’ASI 4, 2026

DEUTERONOMY 14-16; Matthew 25:31-40

We see the beauty of the tenderness of the Lord in his compassion for the poor.

‘Oku tau mamata ki he masani mo e anga’ofa ‘o e ‘Otua ‘i he’ene manava’ofa ki he masiva. 

Philadelphia, where I have lived since 1987, has a homelessness problem. Thousands of homeless men and women live on the streets of my city. I encounter them almost everywhere I go. Sometimes they are begging for money, sometimes they have taken over a sidewalk with a temporary dwelling, sometimes they are angry and threatening, and sometimes they are asleep in a doorway or over the warmth of a grate. I wish I could say that I always meet them with compassion in my heart, but I can't. Sometimes I see them as a nuisance, in the way of what I want to do, and sometimes they make me angry. My problem isn't that homeless people exist; my problem is the coldness and selfishness of my heart. This means that I am not yet at the spiritual place where my heart mirrors the heart of my Lord.

That is why the following directives God gives Israel through Moses are instructive for me:

If among you, one of your brothers should become poor, in any of your towns within your land that the LORD your God is giving you, you shall not harden your heart or shut your hand against your poor brother, but you shall open your hand to him and lend him sufficient for his need, whatever it may be. Take care lest there be an unworthy thought in your heart and you say, "The seventh year, the year of release is near," and your eye look grudgingly on your poor brother, and you give him nothing, and he cry to the LORD against you, and you be guilty of sin. You shall give to him freely, and your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him, because for this the LORD your God will bless you in all your work and in all that you undertake. For there will never cease to be poor in the land. Therefore I command you, "You shall open wide your hand to your brother, to the needy and to the poor, in your land." (Deut. 15:7-11)

Pay attention to God's compassion-call to Israel:

"You shall not harden your heart... against your poor brother."

"Take care lest there be any unworthy thought in your heart."

"Your heart shall not be grudging when you give to him."

"You shall give to him freely."

"There will never cease to be poor in the land."

"Open wide your hand. to the needy and to the poor."

Imagine what would happen if we acted with the compassion portrayed in God's call to Israel. Think of how our response to the poor would change if we remembered the words of the apostle Paul: "You know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich" (2 Cor. 8:9).

 TUSITE MA’ASI 3, 2026

TEUTALONOME 11-13; SIONE 9:39-41

No blindness is more debilitating and life-shaping than spiritual blindness.

‘Oku ‘ikai ha kui ‘e faka’ofa taha mo liliu mo’ui, ka kui fakalaumalie.

I used to think that no one knew me better than I knew myself. I looked at myself through the carnival mirror of my self-righteousness. When approached about a sin, weakness, or failure, I would list evidence of what a righteous man I was. I was defensive and self-protective, clearly more concerned about the sin of others than my own. I didn't know I was blind, because spiritually blind people are blind to their blindness. Even when Luella confronted me, I felt misunderstood and misjudged. I was headed for disaster and didn't know it until God, by grace, gave me eyes to see.

Deuteronomy 1-30 records for us three sermons preached by Moses to prepare the children of Israel for what they would face in the promised land. In those sermons no warning is more important than what we read in Deuteronomy 11:16: "Take care lest your heart be deceived, and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them." This is and has always been a great danger to any child of God living in this fallen world. As long as sin remains in the world and as long as it still lives within us, our hearts are susceptible to being deceived. As the father counsels his son in Proverbs 4:23: Keep your heart with all vigilance, for from it flow the springs of life.

This is the best advice a father can give a son. The heart is the center of our thoughts, emotions, and will; it is the control center of our personhood. Whatever controls our heart will then control our choices, words, and actions. This means that the body will only ever go where the heart has already gone. The most dangerous aspect of the operation of sin is its ability to deceive. Sin is a liar. What it tells us is never true. It paints what is ugly as beautiful. It tells us that what God says is morally wrong isn't so bad after all. Moses warns that an even greater danger than the presence of physical idols is a deceived heart that would cause you to serve them.

Notice how sin works in Deuteronomy 11:16. It deceives us into believing its lies, and because we believe these lies, we turn away from God. And because we turn away from God, we end up worshiping and serving false gods. Sin's deception always leads to idolatry of some kind. Sin woos us to surrender the control of our hearts to something other than God. Moses's warning has been preserved for us because the danger of spiritual blindness is as great today as it's ever been. But we remember that Jesus is the light of the world, who came to give sight to blind eyes. When touched by his convicting grace, we are blessed to see ourselves with accuracy, to turn from sin's lies, to resist sin's allure, and to run to God for protecting and empowering grace. Yes, sin's deception is a great danger, but God's grace is greater.

 MONITE MA’ASI 2, 2026

TEUTALONOME 8-10; 2 TIMOTE 2:8-10

Of all the things your mind needs to remember, nothing is more important than remembering God.

‘I he kotoa ‘o e ngaahi me’a ‘oku fiema’u ke ke manatu’i, ‘oku ‘ikai mo ha toe me’a ‘e mahu’inga ange, ka ko ho’o MANATU’I ‘A E ‘OTUA.

It was the morning of my first job. I was sixteen years old and very nervous. If you had asked me, I'm not sure I could have remembered my name. My dad had filled me with all kinds of advice about how to work, how to relate to my fellow workers, and how to relate to my bosses. I was clueless as to what I was facing, because I had never had a real job before. As I was about to leave my house, dad stopped me and said, "Remember who you are representing." He didn't mean himself, or our family. No, he was reminding me that I represented the Lord. He had saved that bit of advice for last, because he wanted me to drive to my newfound world of work with this paramount issue in mind.

Of all the many laws God gave to his children, the commandment to remember him was perhaps the most important. If he was not at the center of all they thought, desired, said, and did, then they would not live in a way that pleased him, and their forgetful hearts would be susceptible to the allure of the idols of the nations around them. So Moses instructed the people:

Take care lest you forget the LORD your God by not keeping his commandments and his rules and his statutes, which I command you today, lest, when you have eaten and are full and have built good houses and live in them, and when your herds and flocks multiply and your silver and gold is multiplied and all that you have is multiplied, then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 

(Deut. 8:11-14)

Do everything you can not to forget me.

Do everything you can not to forget how I brought you out of slavery.

Do everything you can not to forget how I gave you my law.

Do everything you can not to forget how I chose to dwell in your midst.

Do everything you can not to forget how I sustained you in the wilderness.

Do everything you can to remember me.

When we are walking through the wilderness of life, feeling weak and dependent, we tend to remember and cry out to the Lord. But as Deuteronomy 8 warns, it is in seasons of comfort and ease that our minds become forgetful and our hearts begin to wander. May God give us the grace to remember our Lord and the magnitude of how he continues to bless us in his Son, the Lord Jesus Christ. And in remembering, may we worship and serve him with joy.

 SAPATE MA’ASI 1, 2026

TEUTALONOME 5-7; SAAME 1:1-6

God's commands are wisdom-drenched gifts of divine love. It would be foolish to resist their protecting and directing beauty.

Ko e ngaahi fekau ‘a e ‘Otua, ko e ngaahi me’a’ofa ‘oku anuanu ‘i he poto faka-’Otua. ‘Oku ‘ikai totonu ke tau si’aki ‘a e masani mo e malu’i ‘oku nau ‘omi ki he’etau mo’ui.

God did not give his law as a means of gaining his acceptance; his standard is too lofty, too holy. No, God's law was a gift to those he had already chosen to love, so that they would know how to live and, in following his commands, thrive. That's why the psalmist can exult, "Oh how I love your law!" (Ps. 119:97). The words that follow are my celebration of the gift of God's commands and the grace that empowers us to love and keep them.

God's law is perfect, holy, righteous, good. It is God's gracious, loving, wise, tender welcome to the good life, where sinful impulses are restrained, where we are protected from our wandering hearts, where we learn to live as our Creator designed us to live. God's protective boundaries, the fences of his law, are an expression of his love. These laws have been given not to earn his love, but as a gift of grace to those he has chosen to love. In an ever-changing world-valleys deep, mountains high, woods dark, enemies abounding, temptations whispering - there is security in God's unchanging law. 

There simply is nothing to add to his holy and righteous commands. Who would've thought, who could've ever conceived, who had the wisdom to design such a plan, such purpose, such a moral structure for human help, hope, thriving? It's an act of arrogance, confusion, rebellion, foolishness to subtract things from God's holy and loving moral plan for us. 

So settle in, believe that God always knows what is best, and pray for grace to surrender your thoughts, desires, choices, words, actions, to him.