Abraham: Blessed to Be a Blessing

Thank You, Lord, for this beautiful day, so full of love, unity and peace! I feel so grateful and honored to be a redeemed child of the most High God. I am born of the incorruptible seed of the Word of God!

Thank You for sending Your precious son, Jesus, to die for me, so that the abundant life I live will only get better and better, with each passing day.

Declaration: I declare that Your favor is upon me. I am an ambassador of Christ and will continue spreading the Good News to all who I encounter.

Genesis 22:18 – In your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed, because you have obeyed My voice.

The blessings God gives us are intended to be shared with all, beginning with the inestimable blessing of salvation from sin and including all the other good things the Lord has given to us.

I know that I have been greatly blessed. Perhaps you have too. So many of us have been given so much: material goods, adequate incomes, families, friends, jobs, homes. And that’s just for starters. If you’re a Christian, then whatever your circumstances, you’ve been given the greatest gifts: faith, hope and love. And you have been blessed with the means of grace and the hope of glory. If you have Christ, you have been given everything that is eternally worthwhile. So the big question is “Why?” Why have I, why have you, been so blessed? The answer to that question is found in Genesis 12:2-3.

“I WILL BLESS YOU, YOU WILL BLESS OTHERS”

In the opening verse of Genesis 12 the Lord tells Abraham, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you. I will make you into a great nation and I will bless you.” Abraham went, and God blessed. But this isn’t the whole story. For that you need to read the rest of the sentence. Here’s how it continues: “I will bless you,” God says to Abraham, “and you will be a blessing. . . . and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” (Genesis 12:2-3). God’s promise to bless Abraham is accompanied by a further explanation. His blessing of Abraham is just the first step in a much bigger plan to extend that blessing through Abraham to all the earth’s peoples.

Think in the first place about what this statement says to us regarding God’s intentions. The fuller expression of God’s promise points to his greater plan for the world. God certainly intended to bless Abraham and his descendants, but he never meant his blessing to be exclusive. God singled out Abraham (and later his physical descendants, the nation of Israel) as a first strategic step in what God always determined would be a world-embracing plan of salvation.