First salary meant for church leaders – Pastor Ituah Ighodalo
The senior pastor of Trinity House Church, Lagos, Ituah Ighodalo has contributed to one of the most controversial topics on first fruits, tithes, and offerings.
According to an interview session by the Punch Newspapers’ Victoria Edeme with Pastor Ituah Ighodalo, he described ‘first fruit offering’ as the first of the offerings that come in the course of one’s harvest year or when one begins a new venture.
He cited Exodus 23:16 to support his claim that the first harvest should be gathered and given to the Lord as a token of gratitude for His role in making the labor successful. He applied it to the present day, saying that one’s first wage or company income is their first fruit and should be given to the Lord in order to ensure future financial success.
In his words;
“In the modern day, the recommendation is that the first salary that you earn or the first income you generate from business as a businessman is your first fruit. You should come and present it to the Lord so that your income for that year will be guaranteed.
The other side of the first fruit is that if you’ve been harvesting 10 tubers of yam regularly then all of a sudden something happens and it is 12 tubers and you’d be getting those 12 tubers regularly, the first two incremental tubers are also your first fruit.
That’s the first fruit of your increase. So in the modern day, if you get a salary increase from N100,000 to N150,000, the additional N50,000 you get the first time you earn that N150,000, becomes the first fruit of your increase.
This is to ensure that the increase doesn’t fail and that it continues. It is biblical and spiritual. That explains the first fruit.”
When asked if there are curses attached to not bringing the first fruit to the church, Pastor Ituah Ighodalo said those who discard the instruction risk losing the rest of their harvest and a notable effect of it is they are always struggling
In his words;
“Those who do not pay first fruit run the risk of losing the rest of their harvest or not being able to get the right quantum of harvest that they should have got had they paid the first fruit. Therefore, you find them struggling.
If your land is supposed to have given you a thousand tubers of yam, if you get your first harvest and you don’t pay that first harvest to God, instead of getting 1,000 tubers, you may just get 200. It means that you don’t have enough to do what you want to do. And if you now get the 200 and you don’t pay your tithe, instead of getting that 200, they may be spoiled. Rain may fall or disaster may happen and you lose that money even after you’ve earned it.
So one thing is earning the money, and the second thing is keeping the money. So that’s the risk you run, especially when you say you’re born again, you’ve given your life to Jesus Christ, and you want to serve God.
You have a covenant with God to obey Him. If you’re serving another master like the devil or whatever, he will also bless you and you don’t have to meet all those obligations. Although sometimes even those blessings too, there are obligations that they may not tell you. It may not be recorded like the first fruit.
What it means is that it’ll also add sorrow. It is the blessings of God that maketh rich and added no sorrow to it. So a lot of blessings that people who are not of God get also come with a bit of sorrow and at the end of the day, they may lose their child, their child falls sick or it gives them problems here and there.”
