In the beginning

Genesis 12:2

And you shall be a blessing

God commands every one of us to be a blessing to others in one way or another. In Genesis 12:2, the Lord was saying that He would bless Abraham’s work. Whatever he does it will be a positive outcome. But the most important thing which many of us do not realize is that when God said to Abraham you shall be a blessing, the first and the foremost thing we need to look into is that are we a blessing to God. Many times we fail at this truth. Quite often we see rich people getting involved in philanthropic activities. No doubt it is a good deed. Helping and supporting someone in need is always a good thing. But that does not get someone into heaven.

Let us look at Abraham’s journey to the land Canaan. Genesis 12 vs 7 says, that Abram passed through the land to the place of Shechem, as far as the terebinth tree of Moreh. And the Canaanites were then in the land. Then the Lord appeared to Abram and said, “To your descendants I will give this land.” And there he (Abraham) built an altar to the Lord, who had appeared to him. Here Abraham received a blessing from God and in return Abraham blessed God by building an altar. This altar is called the altar of praise or hope and promise. The thing every believer needs to remember is that every time we receive a blessing from God, we have to bless the Lord in return. Yes. This is called the law of seeding and harvesting. Here we see that Abraham built an altar to the Lord. An altar is a place higher than the ground level and the materials that are used are not man made. Out God is a holy God and nothing unclean and unholy should be used to offer our praises. Building an altar was no easy task in those days. It was a time consuming process. It took a lot of dedication. Abraham did not build the altar for himself but for God. Praising means lifting the Lord to the highest heavens.

The only altar for our praising and for our hope today is at the cross of Calvary. Christ’s vicarious death resulted in releasing us from our sins and sorrows. Through His blood we have been made new. May the name of our Lord Jesus Christ be glorified for now and forevermore! Amen.

Maranatha!