LORD, MAKE ME A BLESSING

Genesis 12: 1-3

“The LORD said to Abram,

“Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you.”

  “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.

  I will bless those who bless you,

            and whoever curses you

            I will curse,

  and all peoples on earth

            will be blessed through you.”

          Now God told Abram, that he was going to be blessed.  When God blesses someone, he puts that person under his care and protection and his favor.  If someone seeks out a blessing for oneself, that is just selfish.  The key that unlocks the door of blessing is the key of faith in God’s direction and provision. 

The person of faith, be it a man or a woman or a child, seeks blessing only to be a conduit or a vessel to carry a blessing  to others, not to keep the blessing and add to his or her personal aggrandizement.  Jesus tells us plainly, “But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these things will be added unto you” (Matt 6:33).  The Apostle Paul challenged Pastor Timothy to be, “a vessel unto honor… and fit for the Master’s use …” (II Timothy 2:21).

     One good thing I noticed about this church is your willingness to help those in need by generously giving of your time and substance.  By substance, I mean clothes, furniture, linens, food and finances. In the two years I have been your pastor I have seen the members of this Christian community reach out sacrificially time and time again to those in need, some of which have come to Christ and are now active members of our little fellowship.  Some of you have given even though you yourselves have very limited resources. Others have given out of your plenty.  The giving has always been with a cheerful spirit.

I am often asked by those who receive those blessings, “How can I pay you back for what you have done for me?” I usually answer, “You can’t.” But what you can do is pay the blessing forward, by being a blessing to someone else in need. Notice I said “usually”, because that answer is not always appropriate.  Sometimes we need to be judicious.

For an actual example:

Well before I tell you that story let me preface it by telling you where I was in my life during the 1980s.  My first wife and I had been home missionaries working at Christ’s Home, in Warminster Pennsylvania for 7 years. We taught school there.  When my wife got sick with cancer, we had to leave that ministry.  We moved to Chambersburg, PA and worked as missionaries with American Ministries to the Deaf.  We had no place to live and no money.  My wife and the deaf girl we had adopted lived in a little camper behind an abandoned school. My son and I slept in the basement of the old school. It was a damp and moldy place with no lights.  We lived like that for several months until a former colleague of ours from Christ Home, who had received a handsome inheritance, gave us a down payment for a home.  She would not accept repayment.  So we had this home, which was a real blessing.  We used it as a dormitory for deaf students in which we boarded and taught life skills for several years until my wife succumbed to her cancer.  After she died, things were really tough for me.

I was introduced by a friend to a man who was really down on his luck.

His wife left him for another man. He had a job delivering water in a tanker truck. When his truck broke down and he did not have enough money to put it on the road again, he lost his home. He was very depressed and he had no place to call home.

          I, on the other hand had a home, my wife had just died, and our son Dan was away in the Navy.

          I sought out the man’s family to inquire about him.  They cautioned me not to just give him things, because in their eyes he had become a “hapless mooch.”  The fact is that he had the wind knocked out of his sails and his self-image had hit rock bottom.

          When the LORD places someone like that in your path, you need to have a good plan, tailored by the Lord, for that individual so he or she does not continue to wallow in despair and dependency.

          I had my own needs too!!  I had my own debts.  I needed to sell my home and get on with life.

 WHAT DID THE LORD LEAD ME TO DO?

          I took my friend in with the stipulation that he would pay me a rent of 200 dollars a month, which included room and board.  That is pretty cheap, but that is all he could handle.  I needed to help him build himself up and become a man again.  He got a job in a grocery store so he could pay the rent.  During this time, I did a lot of listening to his woes and dishing out counseling a little at a time.

          During the two years after my wife’s homegoing, that I remained in my home, I was just making ends meet by renting out rooms to men who were like me, and suffering. I prepared my home for sale.  I was informed by well meaning friends that I would have my house on the market for at least two years before it would sell.  That advice was not from the LORD, but based on human reasoning and the circumstances of the local economy.  As it turned out, I sold the home in two weeks and turned a nice profit.   I gave some financial help to my friends who were down and out.  I channeled the blessing I had received forward.

          Getting back to my down and out friend…The house was full of packed boxes.  He sat in my living room totally dejected, making an opening in the stack of boxes so that he could watch TV.   Blowing -up I bellowed at him telling him in no uncertain terms to stop feeling sorry for himself, and to get up off his fat butt and get a man’s  job.  He became agitated and stormed out of the house. (Perhaps I shouldn’t have spoken to him in that tone of voice, but the fact is, I did.  I could not put those angry words back in my mouth). In the mean time, while he was gone from the house, the LORD spoke to me about the next step in his rehabilitation. 

          When he returned, I asked him if he would be willing to help me by driving the U-Haul to my new home, Christ Home where, unbeknown to me, I was going to be the school administrator.  He gave me a grumpy, “I guess so.” The next day we headed out for Warminster, Pa and Christ’s home. The trip was 150 miles.

          When we got to the halfway point, we stopped for lunch and I dropped my blessing right in his lap.  I said, “The LORD told me to give you this to help you get your life together.  I gave him a check with enough money to get himself into an Interstate truck driving school, I challenged him to buy an old junker car to live in and to eat peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and drink water for three weeks while at school. I told him that this is an interest free loan, but he is to pay it back to me at 200.00 per month until it is all paid back.  He paid it off ahead of time.  This was done as tough love.  He did it, graduating with honors!  Well to make a long story a little shorter. He is now back on his feet.  He bought his home back and is now happily married to a fine Christian woman, attends a dynamic church where he sings booming baritone solos. He now knows that he can manage his affairs with self-discipline with his head high. I could have just given him the money, but the Lord knew he had to learn self-discipline, and that required toughness.

          He calls me now and then.  Every time I think of him, I am blessed, especially when I pray for him. We are friends for eternity. It could have turned out differently, had I made selfish choices, or been blindly philanthropic.

          I told you this story, because as your pastor, I want you to know that I am not the kind of person who will challenge you to do something that I have been too timid to do.  Your pastor is not someone who says, “Do as I say, not as I do.”

          Notice the progression:

1.     We walk in fellowship with God in the Spirit of Christ

2.     He blesses us.

3.     We bless others

4.     He blesses us with more than we blessed others

5.     We bless others more

6.     He blesses us more

7.     etc, etc, etc.

Perhaps you have been considering tithing and are teetering on the brink, but afraid to trust God.  JUST DO IT!  You will be blessed.

Jesus said, “Give, and it will be given to you.  A good measure, pressed down, shaken together and running over, will be poured into your lap.  For with the measure you use, it will be measured to you” (Mark 4:24 NIV).         AMEN