Blessed to be a blessing

The LORD said to Abram, ‘Leave your country, your relatives, and your father’s home, and go to a land that I am going to show you. I will give you many descendants, and they will become a great nation. I will bless you and make your name famous, so that you will be a blessing.’  (verses 1,2)

Read Genesis 11:27-12:8

It really was an act of trust! Look at what Abram was challenged with. First, it is not sure that he knew who this God was who spoke to him. Then he was asked to give up his security, leave his family and go to some unknown land that he would be led to. And he and his barren wife were to become founders of a ‘great nation’. Despite all this, he went. And he was blessed, and did become a blessing.

The church of today, and you and I, are also being challenged by God. We are challenged to leave our comfort zone and go to people we will be led to. As church membership keeps shrinking, we are told to believe that our numbers will increase thirty, sixty and even a hundred times. That we, as people God has richly blessed, will be a blessing to others.

All that remains is for us to do what Abram did: take God at his word, trust him, and go forward in faith. We have one very distinct, very large, advantage that Abram probably didn’t have. We know who this God is, what he has done for us, and what he wants us to do that will make us a blessing to others.

Let’s do it!

Father, I hear your call. Grant me the faith to obey you without question and to go to people I may not know but who are known by you. Amen.

by Bob Turnbull, in ‘God’s Promises for each Day’ (LCA, Openbook, 1999)

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