Keith Green, singer and song writer of the 70s sings a song with the lyrics, "Bless me Lord!, Bless me Lord, it's all I ever hear, no one hurts, no one aches, no one even sheds one tear, but He cries, He weeps and He bleeds, and He cares for your needs, but you just lay back and keep soaking it in! Can't you see it's such sin!?" This song of the 70s even more accurately describes the Amercian church of today. Collectively, churches in the U.S. are billions of dollars in building debt for the sake of catering to the consumerism of our culture which has contaminated Christ's followers. While our worship services are often comprised of lush comfort and lively entertainment, billions of people still need to receive the greatest blessing of their Creator. We have sorrily missed the call of God and sought after comfort from God, our cosmic sugar-daddy who exists to answer our prayer requests that are catered to and communicated around our needs and wants.
Genesis 12 records the essence of God's call to all His people as it is specifically given to Abram. Inherent in God's call are two commands. First, God commands him to LEAVE. Second, there is a command to BE A BLESSING. Our English translations often miss this from the original Hebrew because it is often incorrectly rendered, "and you will be a blessing." However, this misses the mark. God is not suggesting that as a result of leaving, Abram will be a blessing, but rather God is commanding Abram to "...be a blessing." The command to be a blessing implies that Abram's M.O. in life, his drive and singular intention is to be a blessing. But first he must leave.
The leaving of Abram involved leaving three things, familiarity (his country) family (father's household) and identity (his own people, ethnicity). I don't know about you, but if I were called to leave such things, this would smack in the face of the two gods I worship most, control and comfort. This was essentially what Abram was called to leave, as mostly evidenced in the fact that God did not even tell Abram where he was going.
Abram not only obeyed the first command to leave, but he also obeyed the second command to be a blessing. Immediately, Abram takes many people, or in the Hebrew it says many "souls" with him from Haran. These people or souls were immediately exposed to this new God. Thus, they were richly blessed. But notice, the mode of blessing by Abram. He did not simply bless people by offering assistance to their life struggles. Instead, Abram continually blessed people with God. For instance, in the land of Canaan, he built two altars, one in Shechem and one east of Bethel. There he called upon the Lord. This means that he proclaimed or taught about his God. So, how was Abram blessing people? Not solely by material or physical means, but primarily by addressing their spiritual needs. Often churches today are content to limit our blessing of others by helping them out in life, often because we worry too much about what they may think of us if we talk about Jesus.
Also, notice Abram did not understand God to exist in order to bless Abram! Instead, Abram saw himself existing to be a blessing to others for God. In fact, upon Abram's death, he still did not see the promise of God fulfilled. He had only one son from his wife Sarah, not the millions God promised. Furthermore, he owned only one piece of real estate and that was a cave to be buried, not the expanse of real estate of Canaan which God promised. Did Abram feel cheated by God? Did Abram begin to pray that God would deliver on His promise? No. This was okay with Abram because he understood that God did not exist for him, but rather he existed for God and that God, Himself was his reward, not the children, nor the land.
Ironically, God's call to Abram is not only God's call to everyone on earth, it is modeled in Christ's own mission to earth. Jesus Christ's life is comprised of the same two commands. First, Jesus Christ, although being God and not obligated, nonetheless, LEFT Heaven. He gave control over to God the Father and gave up the comfort of Heaven to be dependent upon the womb of a 14 year old girl named Mary and to live a life dependent upon God the Father. Also, this life of Christ embodied the second command to BE A BLESSING. Jesus' blessing to us is not an improved life. The blessing of Jesus is not for us to have the life we've always wanted. Instead, Jesus' blessing was the same as Abram's life to bless people with God. Thus Jesus blesses us with Himself which involves being given a new life. A new life which involves LEAVING all our sin and BEING A BLESSING to all by sharing Jesus Christ with them.
What would happen in churches today if all of our personal prayer requests were replaced with thanksgiving to God because we trust in His faithfulness and goodness? What if those same prayer requests were replaced by passionate and persistant pleas for God to show us and enable us to be greater blessings to others? How would the world be different if some of the richest people in the world, American Christians, repented of their affluence, sold their church buildings which exist for themselves and used the money to help people in the world and tell them about Jesus? Would the world be any different? Would I be any different? Will I leave my gods of comfort and control to fully follow God with a singular intention of being a blessing to the world? Will you? Why won't we?
Beams Away!
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