Episode 1653: To Be a Blessing

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Scott Maderer: [00:00:00] Thanks for joining me on episode 1,653 of the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

Chris Meroff: I'm Chris Meroff I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent in your treasures to live out your calling, having the ability to be known, heard, and valued, and create an environment where others are known, heard, and valued.

And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the Inspired Stewardship Podcast with my friend Scott Maderer.

Scott Maderer: Now I'm learning slowly, but learning to allow God to show me the plan, allow God to show me the reconciliation that I need and that we all need. Through Jesus the Christ. Through that we [00:01:00] are blessed and like Abraham, we are called to be a blessing.

Welcome and thank you for joining us on the Inspired Stewardship Podcast.

If you truly desire to

become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your time, your talent, and your treasures for your true calling. In the Inspired Stewardship Podcast, you will learn to invest in your. Invest in others and develop your influence so that you can impact the world.

In today's spiritual foundation episode, I talk about Genesis chapter 12 verses one through nine. I share how we are called, but that doesn't mean we know the end of the journey. And I also share how we are called to go with faith, not certainty. Genesis Chapter 12 verses one through nine says, now, the Lord said to Abram, [00:02:00] go from your country and your kindred and your father's house to the land that I will show you.

I will make of you a great nation and I will bless you and make your name great so that you will be a blessing. I will bless those who bless you and the one who curses you. I will curse and in all of the families of the earth shall be blessed. So Abram went, and as the Lord had told him, and lot went with him.

Abram was 75 years old when he departed from Huran. Abram took his wife, Sarah and his brother's son lot, and all the possessions that they had gathered and the persons whom they had acquired in Harran and set forth to go to the land of Canaan. When they had come to the land of Canaan, Abram passed through the land to the place of Cesam to the Oak of Mara, and at that time, the Canaanites were in the land.

Then the Lord appeared to Abraham and said to your offspring, I will give you this lamb. So he built there an altar to the Lord who had appeared to him. From there, he moved on to the Hill country on the east of Bethel [00:03:00] and pitched his tent with Bethel on the west, an eye on the east, and there he built an altar to the Lord and invoked the name of the Lord and Abraham Journeyed on by stages toward the Na Gibb calling.

It's one of those things I talk a lot about on the show. And often in in church you hear calling, but it's usually a story from the pastor or the clergy at the front of the room talking about how they were called to be ordained and called to be a pastor. In fact, we often think that calling only applies to ministry and ordination and clergy and those set apart in that way.

But the truth is that a clergy member and their call is no different than the call of each and every person sitting there in the pew when they preach. Being called in that way doesn't make a clergy person special or higher or better. [00:04:00] And in fact, the call here that we're talking about in this passage from Genesis doesn't make a Abraham higher or better or special.

God is saying here, yes, I'll make you of you a great nation and I'll make your name great. And that sounds like fame and recognition, but it's not notoriety for the sake of notoriety. It's not fame for the sake of fame. This isn't about being a celebrity or being celebrated. This is about being useful and what's more, being useful for the purpose that God has set them to.

Your name will be great, says the God who calls so that you can be a blessing so that you can be a blessing. Your importance in the wider world is wrapped up, not in your power for yourself, [00:05:00] but in the power to bring hope to others, to bring hospitality to strangers, healing to the broken grace, to the outcast.

Your power to bring others up is what it's for. Abram, and yes, it's still Abram, not Abraham at this point is set aside. Their identity set aside who they are so that they can become a blessing. It becomes who they are, not just what they do. They become the sign and the promise of God's presence, and it's for the world.

Making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. I dunno about you, but when I hear transform the world, I have a hard enough time thinking about transforming myself or transformation of my community or [00:06:00] my neighborhood or my family. And now we're supposed to think about the whole world, but that's what Abram is called to hear.

That's the message that Abram is given. He's called to go and so Abram went. We barely go if we know the full journey ahead of time with all of the bumps and bruises and everything that's going to come. And yet, Abram went, he didn't even know where he was going. He was sent to a foreign land to engage in a world transforming mission, and he didn't even know where he was gonna end up.

And I don't know about you, but that is the call to faith. That is the call to mission that we all go through in our own way. Wrestling with that idea of what is God calling me to do? What am I called to do? What am I called to [00:07:00] be in the world? And I want complete information. I want the whole story. I usually don't get that, and no one really does.

Abram didn't either. It's revealed in the journey. It's revealed as you go. Leave the familiar, leave your comfort zone and go to a place that I will show you, not a place I've already shown you, not a place I've showed you in the past, but a place I will show you an unknown place. And that's what life is like.

That's why the text ends with him, journeying by stages and fits and starts. It might say, that's what my journey has been like. I think that's what most of our journeys are like. We make it to the next step and we look up and we barely know where we've been, much less where we're going. It's a step by step progression and none of it is ever certain, [00:08:00] but it is faithful.

It is full of faith. That is the way forward. That's the way to be a blessing by living that faith each and every day and stepping forward into an unknown future. I don't know about you, but I'm on about plan F right now. Not plan A or B, but not even D or C, but rather forward on, and it's because there have been times when I've fought to live out my plan.

And now I'm learning slowly, but learning to allow God to show me the plan, allow God to show me the reconciliation that I need and that we all need through Jesus the Christ. Through that we are blessed. And like Abram, we are called to be a blessing. Thanks for listening.[00:09:00]

Thanks so much for listening to the Inspired

Stewardship Podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and passively listen, but act on what you've heard and find a way to live your calling. If you enjoyed this episode. Please. Please do us a favor. Go over to inspired stewardship.com/itunes.

Rate all one word iTunes rate. It'll take you through how to leave a rating and review, and how to make sure you're subscribed to the podcast so that you can get every episode as it comes out in your feed. Until next time, invest your time. Your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the [00:10:00] world.