{"id":1784,"date":"2022-07-07T09:22:43","date_gmt":"2022-07-07T13:22:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/js1cd06kre.onrocket.site\/?p=1784"},"modified":"2022-07-07T09:22:43","modified_gmt":"2022-07-07T13:22:43","slug":"blessed-to-be-a-blessing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/2022\/07\/07\/blessed-to-be-a-blessing\/","title":{"rendered":"Blessed to Be a Blessing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n


\u201cBlessed to be a blessing.\u201d
\u00a0
That turn of phrase never actually appears on the pages of Scripture.\u00a0 But it\u2019s an accurate summation of God\u2019s ongoing plan to rescue our broken world.\u00a0 God will bless a particular individual, who will in turn become the conduit of God\u2019s blessings to the rest of humanity.
\u00a0
We learn in Genesis 12 that the particular individual is a 75-year-old senior citizen named Abram, who will one day become known as Abraham.\u00a0 He receives God\u2019s call by means of four lines that can only be described as poetry:
\u00a0
\u201cI will make you into a great nation and I will bless you.\u00a0<\/em>
I will make your name great, and you will be a blessing.\u00a0<\/em>
I will bless those who bless you, and whoever curses you I will curse;<\/em>
and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.\u201d\u00a0<\/em>
\u00a0
What does it mean to be blessed?
\u00a0
In a trivial way we may count ourselves blessed if we find a good parking space in front of the grocery, or if the very brand of cheese we went there to buy is on sale.\u00a0 In the Bible, blessing means something far more profound.\u00a0 Abraham has been chosen by God to receive, unconditionally, the gift of God\u2019s favor for the rest of his life.\u00a0 We might paraphrase it like this: \u201cAbraham, you are the incredibly lucky, lottery-winning person \u2013 and now the whole world gets to share in the lottery because of you.\u201d\u00a0

The promised blessing that Abraham receives has three dimensions.
\u00a0
The first aspect is persona<\/em>l.\u00a0
\u00a0
Even though Sarah and Abraham have settled into the mindset of their sunset years, God assures them that their future is not retirement, but reassignment.\u00a0 There\u2019s something about growing older that makes many of us suspect that our best days are behind us.\u00a0 But with God, the adventure is always just beginning.
\u00a0
The second aspect of Abraham\u2019s blessing has national<\/em> implications.\u00a0
\u00a0
For the first time he hears the news he has waited to hear his whole life:\u00a0 He\u2019s going to become a father.\u00a0 Through his son Isaac and Isaac\u2019s descendants, he will become known as the father of God\u2019s chosen people, the Jews.\u00a0 Through his son Ishmael and Ishmael\u2019s descendants, he will also be celebrated as the father of the Arab nations.\u00a0 All three of the great Western religions \u2013 Judaism, Christianity, and Islam \u2013 are properly called the Abrahamic faiths. \u00a0
\u00a0
The third aspect of God\u2019s promise is global<\/em> in scope.\u00a0
\u00a0
\u201cAll peoples on earth will be blessed through you.\u201d\u00a0 God singles out this one man, Abraham, through whom a new slice of humanity, known as the Jews, will gradually come into existence \u2013 one generation at a time.\u00a0 God will reveal his power, his love, and his holy character to this special group so they can present to the world, as a gift, a two-thousand-year record of what it is like to know him. \u00a0Best of all, this group will provide the spiritual and genealogical heritage of the future Messiah \u2013 Jesus of Nazareth.\u00a0 \u00a0
\u00a0
Taking all of this into account, the very next verse, Genesis 12:4, is rather amazing.\u00a0 It begins with three little words: \u201cSo Abram left.\u201d\u00a0
\u00a0
For all intents and purposes, this is the end of Abraham\u2019s old life and the beginning of a new one.\u00a0 He is not a nobody with nothing to lose.\u00a0 He is a prosperous merchant who has been living in what scholars assure us was an affluent urban setting.\u00a0 He is successful and secure.\u00a0 But because he trusts God, he starts over.
\u00a0
Abraham now has to do two things.\u00a0 He has to leave,\u00a0and he has to go<\/em>.\u00a0
\u00a0
Leaving means walking away from his old situation.\u00a0 Going means embracing the new situation that is of God\u2019s choosing.\u00a0 Why does the New Testament go out of its way to announce that all people who trust God \u2013 including Gentiles \u2013 are children of Abraham?\u00a0 It\u2019s because this is the way God has always dealt with those who look to him.\u00a0 By faith, we leave behind an old life we cannot keep in order to gain a new life we cannot lose.\u00a0
\u00a0
This is not to say that obeying God will be easy for Abraham.\u00a0
\u00a0
Think about it:\u00a0 At this stage in spiritual history, he has no Bible, no Ten Commandments, no spiritual teachers, and no fellow believers.\u00a0 If he\u2019s feeling mellow around a campfire, he doesn\u2019t even have Kum Ba Yah.\u00a0 <\/em>God is beginning from scratch with one chosen individual.\u00a0 Abraham was the original spiritual pioneer.\u00a0
\u00a0
Author and pastor John Ortberg invites us to imagine the conversation that he and Sarah share as they walk slowly toward Palestine with their entourage of servants and livestock.\u00a0
\u00a0
She asks, \u201cSo where exactly are we going?\u201d\u00a0 He answers, \u201cI don\u2019t know, but I\u2019ll know it when I see it.\u00a0 God will tell us when we get there.\u201d\u00a0 Sarah asks, \u201cGod who?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cActually,\u201d says Abraham, \u201cI didn\u2019t catch his last name.\u201d\u00a0 How many times must Sarah have asked, \u201cWhere in the world are we?\u201d\u00a0 Abraham is the first husband in history who can truthfully say, while leading a family trip, \u201cGod only knows.\u201d
\u00a0
God\u2019s good news is no longer reserved for a particular group of people in a particular part of the world. \u00a0
\u00a0
Because of Jesus, people everywhere can come to know God\u2019s grace and love.
\u00a0
Which means that we<\/em> are now the incredibly blessed, lottery-winning people \u2013 called to bless the world with the news that through Jesus, everyone can hit the jackpot.\u00a0 \u00a0

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cBlessed to be a blessing.\u201d\u00a0That turn of phrase never actually appears on the pages of Scripture.\u00a0 But it\u2019s an accurate summation of God\u2019s ongoing plan to rescue our broken world.\u00a0 God will bless a particular individual, who will in turn become the conduit of God\u2019s blessings to the rest of humanity.\u00a0We learn in Genesis 12 that the particular individual is… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1785,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[170,281,422],"class_list":["post-1784","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-abraham","tag-blessing","tag-calling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1784","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1784"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1784\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1786,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1784\/revisions\/1786"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1785"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1784"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1784"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glennsreflections.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1784"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}