Great and Precious (3)

“I will bless you
And make your name great…” Genesis 12.2

Compelling promises, indeed
The promises God offered to Abraham, vague as they seem at first glance, must have been very compelling. To the people of God, captive in Babylon, these promises must have seemed like a lost opportunity – at least, until God came with better promises to revive their hope. To Abraham, a wealthy man with a bright future, these promises must have been very enticing, indeed.

Abraham was from a prominent family and worshiped the local deities along with all his neighbors in Ur of the Chaldees. Life was good, and, as Abraham saw it, it could only get better as he followed in the promises he and his family had known for generations. Abraham had it all, or so it seemed.

But having it all in Ur of the Chaldees apparently wasn’t all it was cut out to be. Something in Abraham longed for brighter prospects, bigger challenges, better promises. For when God appeared to him in his native land and spoke His exceedingly great and precious promises to Abraham, he did not hesitate to abandon everything he knew and loved in order to go in pursuit of the promises of God.

We are, or should be, just like Abraham. The promises we conjure from our puny, finite minds – though they be ever so expansive and full – canot satisfy the deep longings of our souls. We’ll always want more, because that, as image-bearers of God, is what we’ve been made for – more, precious and exceedingly great more. That’s what Abraham longed for in Ur of the Chaldees, and it’s what God held out to him there. And to us, now.

What did God offer Abraham that so enthralled and captivated him?

Six promises
God made six promises to Abraham. We read about these in Genesis 12.1-3. These six promises are extremely significant, and still matter very much today. For, as Paul tells us (Rom. 4.16), these exceedingly great and precious promises are offered to all who, like Abraham, are willing to set aside their own comparatively puny prospects in order to receive the grace of God and follow Him in faith.

The promises to Abraham can be paired into three sets. The first set of promises relates to the idea of blessing. God promised that He would bless Abraham, and He also promised that He would make him a blessing to others.

Now at first glance we might be inclined to say, “But hey, wasn’t Abraham already about as blessed as you can be? Rich? Set for life? Esteemed by all?” All that is true, but it wasn’t exactly what Abraham wanted. Nor is it what human beings, in the depths of their souls, earnestly desire, although many of us spend a good deal of time and energy seeking precisely this.

The blessing God offered Abraham appealed to him even more than all his success and prestige. This is because the blessing of God involves being drawn into a deeply personal, all-transforming relationship with God Himself.

And that’s not something money or prestige can buy.

Blessed of God
To be blessed of God is to be known by Him, loved by Him, and bound to Him in intimate love, joy, pleasure, and service that makes everything new in our lives. To be blessed of God is to enjoy His favor, to share in His very being, and to know lasting joy and pure pleasure in His presence. To be blessed of God is to commune with Him, to receive His Word and share our deepest needs and concerns in return. The prospect of such blessing captured Abraham’s imagination and led him to leave every other promise and prospect behind to go in pursuit of it. Abraham set aside the material and social promises of Ur of the Chaldees to live toward the promises of God, beginning with the promise of blessings. Abraham experienced this blessing truly, but only partially – really, in his own experience, but mostly only in prospect. The fuller blessing of what God promised Abraham had to await the better promises which are all embodied in Jesus Christ.

It was precisely to this promise of blessing that God pointed the people of Israel in Babylon, that they might seek and find Him, and the blessing of His favor.

We may know the blessing of God more fully than Abraham did by trusting in Jesus Christ. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, Who connects us with God and enables us to partake of Him. We are truly blessed only when we know God like this – personally, intimately, really.

And from that condition of being blessed, God promises us, as He did Abraham, that He will use us to help others know this great blessing as well. Central to full and abundant life is knowing and loving God, living day by day with Him in a relationship of forgiveness, renewal, hope, power, and glory, in which we receive what He graciously offers and, by faith, obey what He requires.

This is the way of blessing – to be blessed of God, and to channel God’s blessings to others as well. And blessing is the doorway to all the promises of God.

For reflection
1.  What do you think of when you hear the word blessed?

2.  Why is knowing God the supreme form of blessing?

3.  How should we expect to know the blessing of God in our day?

Next steps – Conversation: In what ways do you experience the blessing of God? Would you say that seeking this blessing is high on your daily agenda? Why or why not? Should it be higher? Share your thoughts with a Christian friend.

T. M. Moore

This is part 2 of a 5-part series, Living toward the Promises. You can download this week’s study as a free PDF, suitable for personal or group use, by clicking here. You can learn more about living toward the promises of God by ordering a copy of the book, I Will Be Your God, from our online store (click here).

We invite you to register for the free online course, One in Twelve: Introduction to Christian Worldview. In this course T. M. Moore provides a sweeping panorama of how life in the Kingdom of God unfolds in an age in flight from God such as ours. Set your own schedule and study at your own pace. Learn more, and register for One in Twelve, by clicking here.

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Except as indicated, Scripture taken from the New King James Version. © Copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission. All rights reserved.