Focus: Be A Blessing!

Text: Gen.12:2,3

"And I will make of thee a great nation, and I WILL BLESS THEE, and make thy name great; and THOU SHALT BE A BLESSING… and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed."

God singled out one man from the rest of fallen humanity for a fresh beginning, and that one man is Abraham. In Isaiah 51:2, God says of Abraham, "…for I CALLED him ALONE, and BLESSED him, and INCREASED him." God ended with humanity in chapter 11 of Genesis and started afresh with Abraham in chapter 12. God called, blessed, and multiplied him. God's blessing empowers a person to succeed in whatever he or she is called to do for God.

God says to Abraham, "I will bless thee…and thou shall be a blessing." Every blessing has its purpose. God blesses a man for a reason. It is a vertical blessing for horizontal impact. It is a spiritual blessing for social impact. God blesses Abraham to be a blessing to the world around him.

What the world lacks God gives to Abraham, and tells him to pass it on to the rest of humanity. You are truly blessed when you have what others don't have, and you are truly a blessing when you give others what they don't have. In other words, to be truly a blessing is to meet a need.

What is the world lacking? What is the world in need of? Certainly, it is not money or anything material. The world of Abraham was already building a city and a tower - symbols of human civilization, corporate or global image or identity, and of man's architectural greatness. It is a sort of global center for the human race. The tower represents man's longing and search for God - a sacred space for spiritual recovery.

You are not a blessing if you are not meeting a need or supplying what is lacking. Our calling involves bringing something unique to the table that others do not have. It is like the human body in which every part is supplying something different for the body's common good. The feet supply something different from what the hands provide . The eyes see for the body. The ears hear for the body. The heart beats for the body. The head thinks for the body. The mouth speaks for the body. Every part is supplying and doing something different, and all supplies are essential for the body.

A blessed man must find a need that he is fitted or empowered to meet.

The world is in need of a Savior. God blesses Abraham with the Savior that the world needs. Abraham is called and commissioned by God to give the world a Savior. The world is in need of salvation from sin and eternal damnation, and only the Christ of God can save humanity from Satan's thralldom. Abraham is a blessing not by giving the world money or material resources, but by giving the Christ of God to the world. Christ is Abraham's seed, and Christ is Abraham's gift from God to the world.

You are not a blessing if you are not meeting a need. If you give me what I already have, you have not blessed me. You are only a blessing when you are either giving others what they don't have or you are giving them more of what they have less.

God blessed Abraham with material wealth. He was a rich man by all standards. But Christ is the main blessing God gave him to give to the world, because Christ is the blessing that guarantees salvation and eternal life, not material wealth. You are a blessing when you give to others what they are unable to give to themselves. Peter preached that God sent Jesus to bless us (Act.3:26). Jesus Christ gives us what we are never able to give to ourselves. He meets our total needs - spiritual, physical and material. Job says, "I was eyes to the blind, and feet was I to the lame" (Jb.29:15). That is what it means to be a blessing, supplying what is lacking or needed!

What God said to Abraham, he is saying to all of us now: "I will bless thee… and be thou a blessing."

We are differently blessed to be a blessing. God made each of us different and we have each received a different blessing. Jacob differently blessed his children. Genesis 49:28 says, "All these are the twelve tribes of Israel: and this is it that their father spake unto them, and blessed them; EVERY ONE ACCORDING TO HIS BLESSING he blessed them." This is variegated blessing. What Judah lacked, Joseph had. What Naphtali lacked, Levi supplied. Every tribe was given a different blessing, and each blessing is for the whole house of Israel. No tribe lacked a unique blessing to supply to the whole house of Jacob. 

Interestingly, the divine mandate of Abraham is on us today. We have Christ in us to give to all humanity. There is something God has given you that the church needs. You have it, and the church needs it. Concerning the world, God has given you Christ, and the world is in need of Him, whether they know it or not. Man is always aware of his real needs, and even when he knows, he goes looking for them in all the wrong places. Let's give the world what they truly need - Christ, and to the church our talents, time, and treasure, for the advancement of the kingdom of Christ on earth. Be thou a blessing!

by Bishop Moses E. Peter