Let it flow…

As a church we are in the midst of a series of material called The Blessed Place On Earth.

I love the concept of blessing in Scripture. I love the way God’s people long for blessing. I have prayed the prayer’s with others, for others and for myself that God’s blessing would fall.

But, this series has led me into a direction of remembering one of the oldest promises for God’s people. That we are to become a blessing for those around us.

It is quite clear that God does not bless His children so that they can become a stock tank full of blessing. He blesses His children so that they can become a free flowing stream of blessing to  the world around them.

If you have ever seen a stock tank that has sat unattended for a long time without circulation or changing, that water gets nasty! The same is true with the believer who continually stockpiles blessings and never becomes a blessing to those around them.

The best way to make your blessings continue, to make an impact in this generation, is to make sure that every blessing on you, passes through you, to become a blessing to someone else near you. That’s what we mean by making our homes the most blessed places on Earth.

But it’s not just our homes, we need our churches, schools, workplaces, and every other place that Christians go to be places of blessing as it drips off of us, after God rained it down upon us.

So, what is this incredible Scripture that teaches us to not only receive blessing, but to be a blessing. We find it in Genesis 12:

1 The LORD had said to Abram, “Go from your country, your people and your father’s household to the land I will show you. 2 “I will make you into a great nation,    and I will bless you; I will make your name great,    and you will be a blessing. 3 I will bless those who bless you,    and whoever curses you I will curse; and all peoples on earth    will be blessed through you.”

There are essentially three elements that we see here which God provided to Abraham,  to  describe the blessings that He wants to put on His people.

The first is  this, we need to go! In other words part of receiving our blessing is the obedience to God to leave behind the things that we would use to bless ourselves. It’s putting ourselves in a position of humility, sacrifice and submission before God so that we become blessable.

Becoming blessable is like becoming a cup that can be poured into, a container or vessel that God can allow His blessing to  fill up. Without  that presence of mind and spiritual position, we’re just whiny children jumping up and down, screaming at God to take care of us.

My favorite way of understanding  this is to acknowledge that our God is a God who continually blesses. In other words, He is pouring out blessing right now. We  just need to figure out  where He’s pouring that blessing out and go there!

Get out there under that flow.

However, most Christians pray that we want God to move His blessing  wherever we are. We pray “Bless our home, bless our job, bless our circumstance” and have no intention on changing what we are doing.  We just want God to bless us as we are.  This obviously is not found in the  theology of go!.

The second element of  Godly blessing to seeing  blessing in  most simple form, He blesses us. In other words, once we go  where the blessing is…  God  will begin to pour his blessing on us.  This is just a straight up promise of God, we go where He says to go and do what He says to do then  we will be blessed, because we showed up where He was already blessing.

The problem is  our definition of blessing  is sometimes not even close to what God’s definition of   blessing  is.

We often pray that God would  meet a specific need, but forget that in His wisdom He may provide for us in  way far different  from what we intended with our prayer. We want money, but He gives us friends and family to take care of us. We want a new significant other, but God gives us  incredible fellowship to meet  that need while we wait.   We want healing, and God wants to produce faith.

Part of really living in God’s blessing is to  understand that we are more blessed with what God wants to give then what we think we need .

So, the second part of living in God’s blessing is an awareness. Open your eyes,  the  eyes of your spiritual, the eyes of your heart. Be looking for God’s blessing to show up in ways that you could never understand and be thankful for whatever blessings God gives. I promise it’s better than anything you could ask your

Step number three, become a blessing. Abraham was told to go,  when  he did  he would receive a blessing. But that was of not the full deal, it was only the beginning!  He was told that through his obedience he would be blessed, and his own blessing  Would be a  blessing to the entire world.

This is not a burden or responsibility in blessings, this is the absolute and initial intention of blessing. God blesses us so that the rest of the world might know how good He is. God blesses us so that we are not only blessed, but our actions, words, deeds and life will bless those  who occupy the same space.

The only question that remains is, who are you blessing today? I mean if we have already obeyed Him, and He  has already blessed us, where is that blessings flowing out of our lives.

Now, if we haven’t been obedient and therefore are not receiving God’s blessing but living under our own blessing and effort, we need to back that truck up and start there. But, if we want continued blessings to flow through us like a river, we have got to learn how to be a blessing to those around us.

Your hands will never be free for more of God’s blessing as long as they have a death grip on the blessing you already have. We have to let it go if we’re going to receive more of God. The more blessing you receive and let flow through you, the more God can trust you with.

I really believe this is part of what Jesus was expressing when he said to whom much is given, much is required. The more blessed we are the harder it is to let go. But the inverse relationship is true, the more we let go of the more opportunity God has to pile it back on!

So it’s time to make some decisions.

Who are you going to blessed today?

Someone needs some of your money, someone needs some of your energy, someone needs some of your time.

The best way to figure this out is to open your eyes.

And, let me challenge you one step further. Don’t focus your blessing on those relationships that will end up blessing you back. I think that some of the most blessed actions in this world are done from one individual to another where there was no hope of ‘bless back.’

Let’s be honest, if you bless your spouse, you’re kind of expecting some return blessing at some point. But if you bless a stranger, a coworker, or someone with no real connection, that is the quintessential example of letting it go. That blessing is gone and out of your life. And, now it makes incredible room for God to bless you again and again.

So this is it! Are you up to the test? Who are you going to bless?

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