BIAY Day 5 - Blessed Call
Genesis 12-14, Psalm 5
Welcome to the Bible in a Year for 2025. Intro to this series and resource links available here, plus here’s how I’m approaching this year.
Scriptures for Today:
Reflection:
We are now headlong into the family story that will define the remainder of the book of Genesis and, in many ways, lay a foundation for the remainder of the Bible’s story of salvation. There’s so much more than can be captured in one post. Here are a few observations. I’d love to hear yours in the comments.
“Blessed to be a blessing” - That’s the summary version of God’s promise to Abram in 12:2-3 and one of the hallmark ways to understand what it means to be a believer in the God of the Bible. We have an identity—blessed. This is also an outlook to be embraced. This leads to our purpose—be a blessing. This is a calling to be actively pursued. Perhaps it’s a reality to be received too. Maybe blessing others in something we do on purpose to be faithful to God, but also something God does through us—His action that is greater than our effort.
Simple obedience - I love the way God’s call and Abram’s response are narrated. In verse 1, “The Lord had said to Abram, ‘Go from your country… to the land I will show you.” And in verse 4, “So Abram went, as the Lord had told him.”
Yet, Abram walks both by fear and faith - By faith, Abram leaves his country, his people, and his father’s household” (12:1-9). By fear, Abram devises harmful schemes for Sarai to deal with being in Egypt (12:10-13). You and I are not the first to vacillate between the two. It is noteworthy that God is faithful to watch over Sarai even when Abram does not.
Doing our best to get along - The story of Abram and Lot separating reminds me of Romans 12:18. “So Abram said to Lot, ‘Let’s not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herders and mine, for we are close relatives.’” sounds an awful lot to me like an example of Paul’s instruction, “If it is possible, as far as it depends on you, live at peace with everyone.” The OT is far more than a book of illustrations for words we find in the NT, however, that shouldn’t stop us from noticing when it does.
Questions:
How does the concept, “blessed to be a blessing,” speak to your understanding of a believer’s life?
When have you had opportunities to practice living at peace with someone when that wasn’t easy to do?
What else might the Holy Spirit be speaking with you about in the text today?
Prayer: Lord, keep me grounded in the blessedness of knowing Jesus and make me a blessing for His glory. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
If you liked this post from Seeds of Faith, why not share it and/or subscribe?
All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide. www.zondervan.com The “NIV” and “New International Version” are trademarks registered in the United States Patent and Trademark Office by Biblica, Inc.™