The Blessing of Abraham: Session 2 – Present Blessings

Notes:

Present Blessings    See Session Slides Here

What are the blessings of Abraham? Are they spiritual or material? Are they present or future? Is there is a difference between present blessings and future inheritance.

Spiritual Blessings

  • Righteousness. God did not impute sin to Abraham. We are blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ Jesus. We are blessed to be a blessing.
  • Intimacy with God. Gen.15:1. God is our reward. Intimacy is a characteristic of the new covenant. There is no veil, like in the old covenant. Meal symbolizes fellowship. Rev.3:20; Jn.15:15. Intimacy is a grace privilege; but it is still a choice.
  • Intercession is not finding something that needs doing, and then praying to God to get it done. It is to take on God’s burden and vision and praying it through. Prayer is a divine circuit, by which God takes us into His counsel. God talking to God through man, (Rom.8:26).
  • Abraham was a friend of God. We are sons. Luke 11:2; 5-9   = friends; Luke 11:11-13 = sons.

 Material Blessings

  • Genesis 14. Abraham was returning with the spoils from victory. King of Sodom went out to meet him. The King’s Valley was the Valley of Kidron, just outside of Jerusalem. It separated the Mount of Olives from the city. Jesus went here on the night he was betrayed.
  • Melchizedek met him with bread and wine. These are symbols of the new covenant, but also products of the earth. We have earthly needs. We bring these to our Father. He blessed Abraham in the name of El Elyon – God Most High, Possessor of heaven and earth.
  • Melchizedek blessed him Abraham. And he gave tithes to him. The King of Sodom wanted to give him everything, acknowledging that he had gotten the victory. Abraham, by giving tithes to Melchizedek and refusing the gift gave God the glory. Now we see why God led him back through the King’s Valley, so that he would meet Melchizedek first. He did not want to say ‘The king of Sodom made me rich’, i.e. I agreed with him that it was because of me. His vow before the battle is that he would honour the Lord, i.e. give Him the glory. Prov.3:8-9.
  • Abraham and the patriarchs were blessed materially because they were righteous before God, (Gen.24:1&35; 26:12-14; 30:43; 33:11).
  • There are two levels of material blessing. First level: The provision of all our needs. The blessings of righteousness – Matt.6:33; Phil.4:19. 2nd level: We are blessed to be a blessing. “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work” (2 Cor.9:8).

 Physical Blessings

  • There is no record of Abraham being ill, since God promised him a ‘good old age,’ not a ‘sickly old age’. Also, his healthy condition enabled him to bear children in his old age.
  • Healing is the children’s bread. Whose children? Abraham’s. “So ought not this woman, being a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has bound—think of it—for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath?” (Luke 13:16).
  • Several times the New Testament refers to us as sons of Abraham, or him as our father.
  • Give us this day our daily bread.
  • Again, we are blessed to be a blessing. “Now the body is not for sexual immorality but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body” (1 Cor.6:13).

# Answers to this quiz are found in the notes above. Click on quiz to commence. Only correct spelling is recognised. A minimum 70%  correct is required to advance to the next session.