Mensa Otabil - God Has Made Us a Blessing (10/11/2025)
Genesis 12, verse 3: I will bless those who bless you; I will curse him who curses you, and in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed. This is what God said to Abraham, and we always like to talk about Abraham because the Bible calls him the father of faith. For those of us who believe in Christ, Abraham’s life is an example for us. He wasn’t a perfect man; Abraham made some mistakes along the line, but he was very consistent in trusting God and in believing God. In him, we see a human being just like us, pleasing God and doing the will of the Lord. God called Abraham from his country to a new place.
Now, Abraham didn’t know where that place was; God said just walk. So, Abraham was just walking, looking for the place God was taking him. He left his own land and settled in different places, and everywhere he settled, he was a stranger. That is why his descendants were called strangers; just «Hebrew» simply means strangers. Abraham was a stranger everywhere he went; there were people who were not his relatives, and most of the time, they were against him because Abraham was a prosperous man. He was a cattle herder; he had a lot of cattle, and he was doing well. Even when people were not doing well, he was doing well.
So, God said to Abraham, «Don’t fear where I’m taking you; people may not like you, they may be envious of you, they may want to take your stuff from you, but I am with you.» This is what God guarantees to Abraham: He says, «I will bless those who bless you.» God says that everyone who does well for Abraham is doing well for me; what they do to you, Abraham, they are doing to me. I see you as my child, my servant on the earth. When people bless you, they are blessing me, and I’ll bless them back.
So God is saying, «Abraham, don’t worry; you’re not just there alone. What people are doing to you, they are doing to me, and I will give them back what they have done.» If people bless Abraham, I bless them. The God of Abraham is our God, and that promise of Abraham extends to us if we have placed our faith in Christ Jesus. God is saying the same thing to you: you may seem like a stranger with no helper, but I will bless those who bless you. I’m with you, and if people do you good, I will do them good. Then He said the opposite: if they do you bad, I’ll do them bad; if they curse you, they will be cursed.
So Abraham’s guarantee was that God was with him, and people’s response to him would determine God’s response to them. God will not take action to curse anyone, but if they dare curse Abraham, cursing is not just about saying negative words to Abraham; it’s about attacking Abraham, fighting Abraham, trying to take his property from him, his cattle from him. God said, «If you do that, if you fight Abraham trying to dispossess him, I will come against you.» That was the confidence on which Abraham lived his life, and that’s why he could live as a stranger with no physical helper but with God as his helper.
You know, many times we go through life feeling like that; we feel we have nobody, nobody to help us, nobody to lift us up, nobody to encourage us, and we feel alone. We feel people are just going to attack us and destroy us. But if we believe in God, then Abraham’s blessing is upon us. God says, «I’ll bless those who bless you and I’ll curse those who curse you,» and that’s a promise we can live by, trusting in Him that wherever we are, even if we don’t have any human help, the Lord has guaranteed to protect us, to bless us, and to make people treat us well. Then He says to Abraham, «The blessing that I have put upon you, I’m going to allow you to share with as many people as possible.» May that be your passion also.
Let us pray. Say it: «Heavenly Father, as you blessed Abraham, so have you blessed me. Make my life a blessing to my world. In Jesus' name, amen and amen.»