This post is part of a 8-part blog series called, “Outward Focused.” Click here to watch the introduction video.
Your Blessings Were Never Meant To End With You
God has always used the same formula. He will choose a group of people, bless them with His truth and his presence and he will count on them to not keep this to themselves. He expects them to be a conduit of blessings to others.
The first and most important example of this is the Abrahamic Covenant back in Genesis 12. This was God’s good plan to rescue the world from sin. And it became a pattern that God has used throughout the scriptures to save humanity. Here’s the pattern in summary form. God said to Abraham,
“I will bless you…and you will be a blessing… and all peoples on earth will be blessed through you.” – Genesis 12:1-2
First God says, “I will bless you.” Do any of you feel blessed? If you look at your life, your body, your mind, your education, your home, your friends, your gifts? Your I.Q.? Food you have access to? Opportunities? What about in your relationship with God? Have you ever felt blessed by His grace or forgiveness or your salvation or your relationships? Did you ever receive anything that you didn’t earn or merit or deserve? How many of you would say that you have been blessed?
OK, here is the question: “Why were you blessed?”
And I believe the answer is right here in Genesis 12, it is so that others might be blessed through you. And if Christian after Christian would see themselves as simply a conduit of God’s blessing, then the whole earth would be blessed. The same formula that God used with Abraham is the one He is still using today. You and I now assume the title and role of the people of blessing. In Galatians 3:8-9; 13-14, Paul says,
The Scripture foresaw that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, and announced the gospel in advance to Abraham: “All nations will be blessed through you.” So those who have faith are blessed along with Abraham, the man of faith. Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us… He redeemed us in order that the blessing given to Abraham might come to the Gentiles through Christ Jesus, so that by faith we might receive the promise of the Spirit.
And so here we are in this long line — in this pattern of blessing. Every one of you has been blessed by God … so you can give it away. We need to wake up to this reality. I picture Jesus taking his church by the shoulders and shaking us and saying “Look Around!” I told you that you could have my eyes, and my heart, please look! Can’t you see what I see! This world is broken, people that I died to redeem are wandering. They’re lost. I have poured out blessing after blessing on you, but it wasn’t supposed to end with you! Tune yourselves to the needs around you? Do you ever encounter anybody as you go about your day at work, at school, in your own home, in your neighborhood, that could use some of the blessing of God in their life? Guess who’s job it is to pass along the blessing? It’s yours! You have been blessed to be a blessing to others.
