GO AND BE BLESSED
In today’s blog, Ron Simkins connects the calling to “Go!” from God to Abraham, Jesus to the disciples, and to us individually and collectively. May God give us courage to listen and respond to the challenges ahead, that we might also taste the blessings of saying “Yes.” -Renée
I am contemplating writing one more book. The working title is “Immigrants and Other Boundary Crossers: In the Bible and Today.” I have been attempting to let God speak to me anew through reading the Bible in this light. In this blog, I want to share one of the many new personal challenges I have encountered in the process.
When God offered the opportunity to Abraham and Sarah to receive blessings at the personal, family, extended family, national, and global levels, the response God asked for was “Go!” Go to where you have never been before (Genesis 12:1-3). It struck me that Matthew’s Gospel ends with Jesus making a similar promise to the disciples and asking for a similar response. Once again, the command was “Go” where you have never been before. And once again, the promise is that as they go blessings will come to many people at many levels and to the disciples personally (Matthew 28:18-20).
God may not be calling you, or me, to go to foreign lands, but my guess is that periodically God pushes us all to Go! To go into opportunities and risks where we have never been before. As it did for Abraham and Sarah, and as it did for Jesus’ earliest disciples, responding will undoubtedly lead to surprises. Some will be wonderful. Some will be difficult and puzzling. Some blessings come soon. Some blessings don’t show up until generations later. But both of these biblical “Go” challenges include the promise that God’s Spirit will go with those who allow God to lead where they have never been before.
Will you join me in praying that Jesus’ followers across the world, in the USA, in C-U, in New Covenant Fellowship, as well as you and I personally, will sense the nudges from God to go where we have never been before. It seems that blessings always await those who respond.
-Ron Simkins
6 Comments On “GO AND BE BLESSED”
Leave a Reply
This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.
👍⭐️
A good word, Ron! And yes to praying about this.
Thanks Valerie and Nancy. Be Blessed./Ron
May we all keep going, and continue to be blessed. Despite our current fatigue and age!
When I was six, my family moved to Iraq. (Long, long ago. My dad worked for what became USAID.) I grew up as a foreigner in many places, mostly in Latin America. As a rich foreigner, I might add.
Today, as an old man, I serve in our church food pantry. I get to talk to many people, including quite a few who have recently arrived from our neighbors to the South. They remind me of important things.
There’s just something about being a stranger in a foreign country that begs for pity and grace. It’s our home, but not really our home.
Just like this world is to us followers of Jesus, who immigrated to Egypt as a very small child
Thanks Janet. AMEN!