Blessed to Bless

UV 2068/10000 Blessed to Bless
But upon mount Zion shall be deliverance, and there shall be holiness; and the house of Jacob shall possess their possessions.
Obadiah 1 v 17

Mount Zion is a metaphor for the righteous and just rule of the Lord. It implies that the Lord works our His plan for our salvation. He promises us deliverance from the blight of sin and its penalty. Our response is to live holy lives, lives set apart for the Lord. We are to submit to the rule and plan of the Lord for our lives for we trust that He knows what is best for us though in the short run, events do not seem to suggest it. We are to firmly place our feet on Mount Zion or be anchored and rooted in the kingdom of God even as we seek our mundane day to day pursuits and needs.

The promises of the Lord to Jacob or Israel to be with him in his struggles and to enable him to succeed are our inheritance by faith. When we believe Jesus, we are to be all that He wants us to be, we are to leave all that He wants us to leave, we are to live by His word and the assurance of the promises. Believing Jesus enables us to see, taste, experience and manifest the exceeding greatness or glory of God in all aspects of our lives. The journey of the Israelites over forty years to the promised land of Canaan after a God-guided and ensured escape from generations of slavery in Egypt is itself a historic metaphor for our lives. The promises of the Lord are our promised possessions. We are to step out in faith and keep moving towards “possessing these possessions.” We have been given freedom from the enemy of our souls. We should not look back to returning to such bondage. The presence of the Lord will be unto us a cloud by day or a shelter and a provider of a rain of blessings to satisfy our thirst. The presence of the Lord is also a fire by night to guide us in all our dark moments, to ward off the predators, to give us warmth and light.

A promise is only as good as the one who makes it. Since the promises are made by an all knowing, all loving and all powerful God, the promises are as good as already fulfilled. In other words, the promises are already possessions that we own, enjoy, experience, use and share. “Posessing the possessions” implies that we should start enjoying what we are hoping for as if the Lord has already placed it in our hands. It implies that we do not rely on circumstances or our feelings but depend in faith to live out each day, to experience deliverances at the hand of the Lord. Our standards or principles should not be human or relative but matching up to the call to holiness of the Lord. We are blessed to bless or B2B. In other words, we are living not merely for the satisfaction of our needs but our lives are to inspire hope and strength in others. We are to live as if the things we already possess, we do not possess and the things of the kingdom of God that we do not yet possess as if we already possess.

Prateep V Philip