Our assignment as believers is not to needlessly annoy the world, it is rather to leave the thumbprint of divine blessing wherever we go. Wherever we are, whatever we do, with whomever we are doing it, our life is to leave a witness to the grace of God in hopes that some will be left with a compelling call to turn to him, and if not, to leave them with compelling evidence of their rejection of that grace.
The Journey// Focus: Genesis 47:7-10
Then Joseph brought his father Jacob in and presented him before Pharaoh. After Jacob blessed Pharaoh, Pharaoh asked him, “How old are you?” And Jacob said to Pharaoh, “The years of my pilgrimage are a hundred and thirty. My years have been few and difficult, and they do not equal the years of the pilgrimage of my fathers.” Then Jacob blessed Pharaoh and went out from his presence.
Jacob blessed Pharoah, who had blessed God’s chosen people.
God’s promise to Abraham is now being fulfilled in the ongoing story of Joseph’s rise from the low ebb of his years in prison to the zenith of political power in Pharaoh’s palace. Through Joseph’s wisdom, clearly a gift from God, all of Egypt has been preserved from famine and Pharaoh has become even more powerful and firmly established in his position. What has happened: God has blessed the earth because of Abraham, and he has blessed those who have blessed the offspring of Abraham. (Genesis 12:1-3)
Nowhere is the divine pronouncement of Abrahamic blessing clearer than here, as the old patriarch, Jacob, is reaching out his hand to bless Pharaoh, who has blessed him. The man who represents the plan of God is offering God’s grace to the man who represents the quintessential enemy of everything God. And that, in a snapshot, pictures the journey of God’s people on Planet Earth.
As believers, we live in a world of paradox: We are strangers and pilgrims in a foreign land. Earth is not our home; we are heaven-bound. Because earth is currently enemy-occupied territory, and we belong to its rightful owner who is wrestling it back to his control, the world hates us. The god of this world wants to destroy us and eliminate the witness we bear of the Creator who seeks to redeem the world he created. To be clear, the world we live in is no friend of God, which means it is no friend to us. Friendship with this world for the believer, we are told by in James, means to be at odds with God. (James 4:4) We are to be in the world, but not of it, Jesus said. (John 17:16)
Yet we are called to be a blessing to the very world that despises us. We are to bless it, not curse it. We are to serve and strive for justice, and be living proof of a loving God to a lost people. The sense we get from Scripture is that our presence in our particular assigned place on the planet ought to leave a redemptive lift among those with whom we live. They ought to be better off because the people of God were among them. They ought to miss us if we were gone—at least the blessing they received because of our presence.
That is the paradox. We will be a blessing…we will be beaten!
The point being that the reaction we get from the world is not within our purview. How they treat us is above our pay grade. We are simply ambassadors for the true King, representing his interest on the planet he longs to reclaim. Now we can accelerate the world’s hatred by acting foolishly, displaying a “Christianity” that is beyond the bounds of Biblical faith, and being generally annoying believers for no good reason—and there are plenty of Christians who do just that. And the world will hate us.
We don’t need to help them along with that. That will hate us even if we are walking as Jesus walked. Our assignment is not to needlessly annoy, it is rather to leave the thumbprint of divine blessing wherever we go. Wherever we go, whatever we do, with whomever we are doing it, our life is to leave a witness to the grace of God in hopes that some will be left with a compelling call to turn to him, and if not, to leave them with undeniable evidence of their rejection of the grace that was offered.
The question is, are you leaving a fingerprint of blessing where God has assigned you—in your home, school, neighborhood or place of work. I hope so! You are a child of Abraham, living out God’s covenant promise to him to bless the whole earth through his seed. Make sure you are sprouting, and producing the fruit of blessing.
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