THE RESPONSIBILITY OF BEING A BLESSING

SOME OF THE LADIES IN MY BIBLE CLASS

My Bible class and I have been studying Genesis to see what we can learn about God and our relationship with Him through the Patriarchs.  We’ve seen how God promised to bless those who bless Abraham and his descendents but that He also warns that He will “bind in a curse” any who curse Abraham or his descendents. We take this to mean the Jewish people and also those who become Abraham’s children through faith in Israel’s God through Messiah Yeshua.  

Pretty serious matter, cursing someone, or having anyone curse you, don’t you think?  Perhaps Abraham thought that God would take care of his enemies and he didn’t have to worry about them. He would focus on the blessings. They were sure to come about as God promised!  But God seems to be letting Abraham know there will be opposition. Not everyone is going to see these people as God does; not everyone will see them as blessings, but as cause for cursing them. There’s often a balance in the promises God gives.  He will protect us, but there will be cause for Him to protect us.  He will see to it that His people continue to exist, but there will be attempts to destroy them.

Often we look at the positive promises and quickly glance over the rest, the part that implies, “You’re going to really need to hold on to the promises of my goodness and protection and blessings.  You’re going to have to remember that you are Mine and I have set my face toward you to see you through to being the blessings I have ordained you to be. But be aware, there will be those who will not see you as the blessings I intend you to be.”  How are we to feel about those people? 

To reiterate, Abraham was essentially told by God, “I will bless those who bless you and I will curse those who curse you” (Genesis 12:3)  This was meant to include all of Abraham’s descendents from then on. It would be easy to focus only on the blessings but what about those who would bring curses upon Abraham and his progeny?  How was Abraham to relate to them?  How are we to relate to them, as Abraham’s children, whether natural, spiritual, or both (as in Jewish believers)? To take it further and personalize the matter, how do you feel about people who have had a bad attitude about you because you represent God to them?  Or what about if they don’t connect their attitude toward you with God? What’s  your reaction to difficult people? Is your reactions to them, your feelings and intentions toward them what God’s are?

As I looked at Abraham this week, I began to wonder about how he must have felt when God told Him these promises of blessings and curses.   Suddenly, for the first time, I saw this as a great responsibility of God’s people to be, act, live, and speak as people that will not antagonize, or perhaps instigate, those who might be inclined, as a result of our behavior, to speak words of curses about or to us.  As I am seeing it now, this is wrapped up  a good bit with our position in Messiah.  He said, “Love you enemies” and He certainly exemplified that with His whole being.  Most of us were His enemies at one time before Yeshua reached out and brought us to Himself. Thanks be to God who loved us enough to rescue us. 

How we respond to those who act toward us as if they wanted to lay a curse on us, is not just about their behavior, but about ours. If we maintain an attitude, even if only within ourselves, of “God likes me but He sure doesn’t like you,” they are going to know it and it will alienate them further. If we are defensive and try to justify our positions or get “our” truth across, even if we think we’re speaking the  “truth in love” when we’re really judging them, then we are contributing to the atmosphere of antagonism and aiding the potential for curses to take place. 

What does it really mean for someone to curse someone? The word “curse” in this sense in Hebrew is to despise, to bring into contempt, to esteem lightly, to consider someone as insignificant or of small worth. It also means to execrate which is to loathe, detest or deplore. This can apply to the cursing of individuals or even a whole people groups.  Have you ever heard unkind jokes about certain ethnicities or people groups?  Were they being seen as insignificant or of little worth in the eyes of those finding humor in degrading them?  Would Jesus think it was funny? Doubt it?  So should we? The commandments are all about honoring and respecting one another.  Curses certainly don’t fit in there, do they?

I wonder, was the promise God made to Abram also designed to bring a concern for others who might speak with derision to or about them? Or was he, meaning Abraham and then us to just toss them off as the bad guys who came against him and his people and figure they were deserving of God’s wrath?  Knowing God as we do today, which exceeds what Abraham could have known of Him, we know that He sent His Son to die for His enemies, and Yeshua gave His life for those who cursed Him!   He forgave them and petitioned His Father to forgive them as well, saying, “They don’t know what they’re doing.”  No, they couldn’t have.  But neither generally do those who would curse God’s people know all the dynamics involved.  They don’t know that they are striking a pose of opposition against the Almighty, challenging Him who has put His name upon the people whom they are cursing.  Nor are they aware of the potential eternal consequences of hell, unless there is repentance. Most sadly, history is replete with instances of such hatred and curses. Are we, though, like Yeshua,  to forgive in the realization that they do not know what they’re doing, and pray for them for Abba to forgive them as Yeshua did?

Back to Abraham and the second time God confirms His covenant with him.  “When Abram was ninety-nine years old, the Lord appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am Almighty God; walk before Me and be blameless.”  In one sense, in view of the blessings/cursing proclamation I take those words to mean, “ Don’t act in ways that will cause others to not think well of you.” In today’s language, “Don’t be a jerk.”  Sorry, that didn’t sound very holy, did it?  You get my drift.

Yeshua’s half-brother Ya’acov (a.k.a. James) had to deal with his own interpretations of what were  blessings and curses of his Brother being crucified (see previous article on this blog). Likely in remembrance of Yehovah’s words to Abraham, he wrote to the believers, “And let endurance have its perfect result, so that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.” (James 1:4). Obviously his statement has much further application than the issue we’re discussing, but does it not take endurance to respond with love and forgiveness to those who are triggering the opposite?

With regard to endurance, while this may exceed any call we could possibly experience in comparison, we are “looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God”  (Hebrews 12:2). If we are to follow the author of our faith, then there are times we must endure.  The joy comes when the forgiveness is accomplished and received by those to whom we offer it. And then we have the promise of being “seated with Him at His right hand in heavenly places” (Ephesians 1:20).  When we know those who were our enemies are no longer in the place of potentially being bound in a curse, when we see their freedom from curses, we rejoice!  But if we are to be like Yeshua, sometimes we must endure with a godly attitude toward those who really just tick us off, or who are acting in a way that is so ungodly that we are appalled at their behavior. 

I had opportunity for both this past week. My motivation for writing this article was a personal experience with the need for such endurance when a situation presented itself – one in which I was confronted with forgiving someone, or getting angry in self-justifying retaliation or slithering into self-pity. I vacillated between the three, quite honestly. But when I read these words in Genesis 12:3 for the umpteenth time, this time I saw what I’d never seen before. I had already forgiven him but now I realized what a responsibility it is to have the right attitude toward someone who really could be setting themselves up for what they surely wouldn’t want in their lives, and doing so in response to their perception of you. Or in this case, me. 

My concern for the person then became far greater than my self-absorption and how I was feeling. While I wouldn’t classify him as my enemy, I now had greater insight into what Yeshua meant by loving our enemies. It means to have more concern for their ultimate wellbeing than our own.  As it turns out, while my expectation was that the relationship was broken, I received a phone call from him of reconciliation. HalleluYah!  I do not believe, however, that if I hadn’t released him from my own judgment of him, if I had chosen bitterness rather than forgiveness, I would not have received that phone call. Even though he didn’t know, God knew and He rewarded my willingness to align myself with His higher standard and desire to protect this person from possibly finding himself in difficult circumstances of a curse and not making the connection as to why.

When God curses someone, that is a different Hebrew word than when someone curses another person.  It means to bind (as like a spell), to hem in with obstacles and to render powerless to resist. We’re talking about the Almighty binding this kind of curse here. Not something to take lightly by any means.  The example would be when God cursed the ground because of Adam and Eve’s sin. The soil was condemned; cursed, and never again has the earth been fruitful as it was in Eden where no sweat of man’s brow was required for the bounty that existed. The fertility of Eden was banned when God cursed the ground on account of them. 

A few more Hebrew words come into play here having to do with Who God is. First of all, we use the term God without realizing that our western cultural idea of God is a Greek concept.  In the Hebrew culture, Elohiym actually means Judge or One who judges – in the sense of having great power and authority. So whatever your concept of God is, it needs to be adjusted to realize that Elohiym is the Judge of all that takes place on the earth.  

When we call Him Lord, which in Hebrew is Yehovah (accent on the vah), the word means, “He exists,” or the  (Self)-existent One. It is He who is judge with great power and authority who exists.  He says “I AM” because He “am” Lord of everything that exists within the framework of His existence. One cannot, therefore, have ill feelings even about someone and not have God know about it and hold us  responsible for it.  The Bible tells us that we will be held accountable for every word we speak. Yeshua said, “But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment” (Matthew 12:36). That’s a sobering statement, isn’t it?

 One of the greatest declarations in Judaism begins,  “Sh’ma, hear, listen and understand, O Israel, Yehovah our Elohiym is one.”   In English we are inclined to think this means there is only one God. And this is true, but not true of what this word one means in Hebrew.  In Hebrew the word is ehkad.  In this statement in Hebrew it means that Yehovah is in unity with Himself.  One example would be that He manifested Himself as a pillar of fire at night and a cloud by day, both working together to preserve His people, night and day. Different manifestations but in unity.  We can see the “oneness” of Yehovah’s manifestation as Father, Son and Holy Spirit in that same unity. They are not three persons as has erroneously been believed but God manifesting Himself in different ways, always in unity with Himself.

Have you noticed that when you are holding resentment against someone, to further address our present issue here, we are not “in unity” with ourselves.  We’re out of sorts, we’re at odds in our emotions. There is a sure clue that we’re out of touch with God’s ways. When we are at peace with God, we are at peace with ourselves which means we’re at peace with others. It may take some forgiving, but we’ve been giving the wonderful immeasurably valuable gifts of forgiveness and repentance to maintain His ways in our lives.  I’m often grateful for both.

When we speak of Elohiym as Judge and having all power and authority, it could be very frightening if we didn’t know He was also love – as in “God is love” (1 John 4:8 & 16).  An explanation of the Hebrew sense of love would be helpful here.  The word is Ahav. It is not an emotion but an action.  If you’ve read through 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter, you’ve seen that it’s about doing or not doing, and not about feelings. We are to “love” God and each other with our actions, not with our emotions.  Emotions might follow but love is about how we treat one another, not how we feel about one another.

Hebrew is about actions, not feelings.  The words are about concrete ideas. The Hebrew culture sees   differently than we do about many things, this being one of them – and a significant issue it is.  If we think love is dependent upon feelings, then so would forgiveness be about feelings. Not so from Yehovah’s perspective, nor from Israel’s as He set the standard for the way they saw all of life when the followed Him. Forgiveness, like love, is a choice of how to relate to someone, and is not dependent upon our emotions toward them. For this reason, we forgive not because we feel like it but because Yeshua died to forgive us all.

Hebrew is much more concerned with function, with actions, with the way things happen, while Greek thought is much more concerned with the way things appear, or look.  For example, a pencil would be described by a Greek by what it looks like: yellow, eraser on one end and a pointed lead on the other, while a Hebrew would be more inclined to say, It writes words or draws pictures. 

The original Hebrew were word pictures and combinations of word pictures. The Hebrew word for father was one of an ox and a tent. Ox represent strength and the tent or a house. Put them together and they represent “the strength of the house.” The father is the one who provides the strength to the home.  He is the provider and protector. You can understand from this concept how fathers were greatly respected in Hebrew culture. Abraham is still considered the father of Judaism and even to the Christians he is the father of faith.  The strength of his faith remains the foundation of the “house” of God’s people.

The opposite of curse, of course, is to bless. Bless too is an action word. It’s not just to say nice things about someone so they’ll be happy and feel good. Bless in Hebrew is barak, which means to kneel down and present a gift in respect or honor to another.  When the Bible says that the Lord “gave gifts to His church,” He bestowed great honor upon us, even respect that we would use the gifts wisely and under His guidance.  To imagine God kneeling before us seems irreverent, but when we consider how Yeshua humbled Himself to become a man, a human being, let alone die, we see the blessings of God in His gift of Yeshua to us.

A part of the blessings of God is to walk in the light as He is the light. That Yeshua is the reflection of the light of His father, the outraying just as the rays of the sun show us the sun we cannot look at,  the word for shine is or, literally to shine.  This word equates with bringing about order because light illuminates or reveals what has been in the dark.  We pray for God to shine His truth into the hearts of those do not understand His ways of love and forgiveness.  We pray they will come to understand to enter into His  graciousness, which is reflected in how His people are to one another just as God intended us to be – in expression of His gracious character.

The word for Gracious will give us another word picture.  The word for gracious is Hannan. The name Hannah comes from this word and also means gracious.  As Abraham’s tents would have been set up in a circle, as all wanderers would, it was considered a place of beauty.  Not just in appearance but in action. It would be a place where love, friendship, community and sustenance existed. The word gracious is a verb, a word of action, a way to be, and to act with one another. Even strangers would find a gracious welcome among other tent dwellers. We see it personified when Eliezer went to cousin Laban to find a wife for Isaac. While admittedly there were tensions amid Abraham’s tents with Sarah and Hagar, the concept of gracious living was this one.

Such a life would be one of peace, of shalom. This word has a root word of shalam, which means to restore in the sense of replacing or providing what is needed in order to make someone or something whole and complete. When used as a noun, shalom is used for one who has or has been provided with whatever is needed to be whole and complete. 

When we forgive someone we restore them to the place of having nothing against them, of being free from any curses that might have come to them.  We release them from any expectations which they have not fulfilled or standards they have violated. Do they always deserve it, or will they always receive it?  It is likely that in many instances, we will not have the opportunity to tell them we forgive them. But in our own eyes and heart, we are seeking to be right with God, and to be His instruments of forgiveness, extending His forgiveness to those in need.

When we are cursed, rejected, even despised, it is the way of God to forgive, and it is the grace and power of God that enables us to do so.   The light of the Lord shining through us will put things in order which will not be in order without His light. We pray that things will fall into the order of Yehovah’s kingdom for them, as we look to the Father in all His strength to bring them into His house.  In chosing to do so, we find that we are in unity with God and with ourselves as well as with others. Why would anyone want less than that?