God made an amazing promise to Abram (later renamed Abraham):
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. (Genesis 12:2-3)
As the spiritual children of Abraham, through Jesus, our calling is to join with Jesus in being that blessing to the world. Dave Ferguson of Exponential Church Planting shares five ways we can join in. In the Verge video embedded below, Dave notes that, “From the very beginning, God’s way of reaching and restoring the world has always been through what I would call a blessing strategy.” He then (using the acronym BLESS) provides a simple way to live out that strategy in and through our relationships with people around us (our neighbors):
B- Begin with prayer. Ask, “God how do you want me to bless the people in the places you’ve sent me to?”
L- Listen. Don’t talk, but listen to people, their struggles, their pains, in the places God has sent you.
E- Eat. You can’t just check this off. It’s not quick. You have to have a meal with people or a cup of coffee. It builds relationships.
S- Serve. If you listen with people and you eat with people they will tell you how to love them and you’ll know how to serve them.
S- Story. When the time is right, now we talk and we share the story of how Jesus changed our life.
On YouTube at https://youtu.be/BMpUSDKPU4s.
