“And I will make you a great nation, and I will bless you, and make your name great; and so you shall be a blessing;” Genesis 12:2

In this verse we find a very important principal, from which we can all learn. God tells Abram that He would make Him a great nation, bless him, and also make his name great. Why does God do this? For two reasons: First, so that through Abram, the world would be blessed, and second, so that God would ultimately be glorified.

We are all blessed with gifts from the Lord. Often times, we get stuck in a self-centered mode and forget the reason why God is blessing us (either with physical gifts or with spiritual gifts). We take ownership over those gifts and treat them as though they are ours, rather than understanding that God has entrusted them to us for a reason (and it’s not so that we will get all the credit!).

In the verse above, we can see that God entrusts each of us with gifts or treasures so that we can bless others. All of the blessings in our lives come from God alone, and they are here not for us to say that we have them, or show of with them, but in order for us to glorify God with them. Often times, we get prideful and that is when we take ownership over those things.

Here, God promises to bless Abram, and indeed as we will see in the future, God blessed Abram in great and mighty way. However, these blessings existed so that through them, God would reveal His faithfulness to His chosen ones so that others would see and praise Him. It was not about Abram, or his offspring…it was ultimately about God. Because of this great blessing, Abram would in turn bless the world, bringing great glory to God.

This unconditional covenant of blessing is crucial in understanding God’s plan for Israel and, indeed, the entire world.

Let us reflect this coming weekend on the gifts and blessings that He has given each of us; are we using them for His glory or our own?

Shabbat Shalom,

Moran