Abraham’s blessings are mine?

 

Abraham’s blessings are mine?

Hello and welcome back to my blog site. I would like to start this blog with two popular songs about Abraham of the Christian Bible that most Christians can identify with. They are childhood songs but even adults sing them as well and they have been changed up to fit the modern time.

The songs

Father Abraham (first song) lyrics

 

Father Abraham had many sons, many sons had Father Abraham, I am one of them and so are you. So, let's just praise the Lord .... Right arm.. and so it continues with various parts of the body including left arm, head included.

Abraham blessing are mine (second song)

This particular song is very popular in Nigerian Christian music realm. And it goes like this:

Abraham blessing are mine (2x); I am blessed in the morning; I am blessed in evening; Abraham blessing are mine.

Now blogging

Like many, I have sung these songs and still sing and believe in the messages that they carry until something in me became curious and started to question what they really mean. Is Abraham blessing truly yours or are you just claiming the blessing from another? Have you ever asked yourself what Abraham did to gain the blessing that we claim to partake in? Do you know what the blessing really entails or the suffering that he had to go through to get it? Would you in claiming the blessing, claim the suffering? Do you even know who Abraham is and his journey of faith? Is it even right to claim this blessing as many get stuck on the claim than working on their faith and their salvation? These are the questions that many of us do not think or ask ourselves. So, I decided to use this blog to open up the topic to discuss who we are saying we are when we claim the blessing of Abraham and lessons we can learn. I do this by first telling the stories of Abraham and reflecting on the lessons we can derive from them. This particular blog marks the beginning on thus the first part of the blog.

 

The story of Abraham of the Christian Bible

Book of Genesis. Chapter 12 – 25.

Who is Abraham 

Abraham whose birth name is Abram before God changed his name to reflect his life purpose is the son of Terah from the town of Ur and married to Sarah whose birth name is Sarai before God changed her name to Sarah to reflect her purpose. Abraham and Sarah are blood related - cousins. 

Abraham after his father had died, was called out of his homeland by God and asked to leave his country, kindred and family to a place God said he want them to go. This place we later learnt is the land of Canaan and popularly known as 'the promise land'. Abraham listened to the Voice and took his wife, nephew Lot, and his possessions to journey to the promise land. But when Abraham arrived in Canaan, the citizens of this land were still living there, however, God appeared to him and confirmed that this is the land promised to him. Abraham built the first altar to the Lord, invoking his name at the altar and pitched his tent in nearby district of Bethel close to Canaan. 

 

God’s blessing upon Abraham before he made his journey.

 

The following are the blessings God bestowed upon Abraham before he made the journey:

 

“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 people on earth will be blessed through you”.
(Genesis 12; 2-3).

 

After Abraham had left

 

There was famine in the new land where Abraham resided and the surrounding areas and so Abraham went to Egypt with his wife, Sarah and Lot in search of food and for survival. Before getting there, he told his wife to tell people in Egypt that she is his sister out of fear of being killed and she agreed. Pharaoh of Egypt at the time took Sarah as his own and Abraham was treated kindly because of this and was given animals and other possession. However, things got bad for Pharaoh when God punished him by inflicting plague on him and his household for taking Sarah. Consequently, Sarah had to be released back to Abraham, but they were equally allowed to take what they were given and left, and this made him wealthy.

Abraham returned to Bethel side and settled at it border with Ai and once more built an alter for the Lord who called him. Lot still with Abraham has also acquired some livestocks. However, an issue of not having enough land for both Abrahams' livestocks and Lot's to feed came up and this caused quarrel between the two. To avoid this issue Abraham suggested that they part company so that each can have his land where the livestock (animals) they have acquired can herd. Lot agreed to this, and they both went their separate ways. Lot went east to towards Jordan, which the bible described to well-watered and green like Egypt and he pitched his tent near Sodom. Abraham lived in the land of Canaan but pitched his tent in Hebron and there he built an altar for the Lord. The bible let us know that Sodom were sinning a lot against God at the time. But where Abraham resided, the Lord told him to look far and wide, that his offspring shall inherit it.

 

Abraham rescues Lot his nephew from those that captured him in the land of Sodom where he resided upon.

 

In chapter 14 of the book of Genesis, there was battle between various kingdoms and the kingdom of Sodom and Gomorrah where Lot resided were attacked and captured. The kings (four joined up together) that defeated Sodom and Gomorrah took what they had (e.g. their food, livestock etc) and also captured Lot in the process and took him and all possessions taken from Sodom toward their home country. However, a man from Sodom was able to escape like others and he reported the matter to Abraham.

When Abraham heard what happened to his nephew, he took trained men from where he now lived (new the great tree of Mamre the Amorites) who were his allies (Aner, Eshkol and Mamre) and went on a hot pursuit of those that captured his nephew and rescued Lot from their hands and was able to recover all the goods taken by them, together with the women and the other people. After Abraham defeated the captures of Sodom, the King of Sodom met him in the Valey of Shaveh (that is, the King’s Valley). Then Melchizedek king of Salem brought out bread and wine. He was priest of God Most High, and he blessed Abraham saying:

“Blessed be Abraham by God Most High, Creator of heaven and earth. And praise be to God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand” (Genesis 14:20).

After the blessing, the king of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the people and keep the good for yourself.” But Abram said no to this request and informed the king that he has already made and oath to God not to accept any belonging that belong to the king. The reason for this is so that the king will never be able to say, ‘I made Abram rich.’ However, he did ask for share of food and other possessions for the men that fought with him to recover the possessions of Sodom. 

 

The Lord’s Covenant with Abram

This covenant is reported in chapter 15 of the book of Genesis. I put this as a subtitle as this is where the main event took place. For in previous chapters, we were told of God’s call to Abram who I used his changed name to write the story so far. But it is not until this point that we truly learn what type of covenant that God wanted for Abram; all previous texts/chapter let us know that God called Abram and promised to give him the land of Canaan. But how this is to be achieved was not made known to us until this chapter. This chapter revealed all to us.

The chapter began the story by telling us how the Lord appear to Abram is a vision and said to him:

“Do not be afraid, Abram. I am your shield, your very great reward” (Genesis 15:1)

 

At this point we learnt something about Abraham that we were not made aware of in previous chapters. We learnt that though he has been greatly blessed, he lacked that which his heart desired the most. A child or an offspring of his own, and from his response to God’s word, he revealed his deep anguish or sadness over this and blamed or accused God for not giving him a child. He said these:

 

“Sovereign Lord, what can you give me since I remain childless and the one who will inherit my estate is Eliezer of Damascus? And Abram said, “You have given me no children; so a servant in my household will be my heir.” (Genesis 15: 2-3)

But God made it known to Abraham that no one will take part in the blessing he is promised or be heir or possess his possessions at his death except for the child of his own whom the Lord will give him. To help him to visualise this, the Lord took him outside and make him look at the sky and told him that his offspring to come will be as countless as the stars in the sky. Here Is more of the conversation from verse 6 of chapter 15 of the book of Genesis:

⁶ “Abram believed the Lord, and he credited it to him as righteousness”.

^“7 He also said to him, “I am the Lord, who brought you out of Ur of the Chaldeans to give you this land to take possession of it.” ⁸ But Abram said, “Sovereign Lord, how can I know that I will gain possession of it?” 

⁹ So the Lord said to him, “Bring me a heifer, a goat and a ram, each three years old, along with a dove and a young pigeon.” ¹⁰ Abram brought all these to him, cut them in two and arranged the halves opposite each other; the birds, however, he did not cut in half. ¹¹ Then birds of prey came down on the carcasses, but Abram drove them away.

¹² As the sun was setting, Abram fell into a deep sleep, and a thick and dreadful darkness came over him. ¹³ Then the Lord said to him, “Know for certain that for four hundred years your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and that they will be enslaved and mistreated there. ¹⁴ But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves, and afterward they will come out with great possessions. ¹⁵ You, however, will go to your ancestors in peace and be buried at a good old age. ¹⁶ In the fourth generation your descendants will come back here, for the sin of the Amorites has not yet reached its full measure.”

¹⁷ When the sun had set and darkness had fallen, a smoking firepot with a blazing torch appeared and passed between the pieces. ¹⁸ On that day the Lord made a covenant with Abram and said, “To your descendants I give this land, from the Wadi^[e] of Egypt to the great river, the Euphrates— ¹⁹ the land of the Kenites, Kenizzites, Kadmonites, ²⁰ Hittites, Perizzites, Rephaites, ²¹ Amorites, Canaanites, Girgashites and Jebusites.

I would have liked to re-write text in this chapter but on second thought, I choose not to as upon reflection, I wanted you the reader to read as written in the Bible. Yes, because there is something about reading the text yourself that allows you to draw a knowledge that others may not have from it. In speaking about knowledge, the highlighted texts are the key knowledge, interesting areas that I felt that we ought to reflect upon and in doing this, you may have learnt some lessons; gained new insights and more questions generated in your mind. These lessons will be shared when I look at the lessons we can learn from the story of Abraham. 

My lovely and reflective readers, I will end this blog for now. But the story continues as Abraham’s story has not yet ended as it ends on his death, but we are yet to get there.  Until then, remain blessed in the name of the Lord our God.

 

With love

Ogechi (a.ka. Talkinsen. Talking sense into biblical truths)