Every week at the end of opening session in the Foundations program we end with a great shout: "Be A Blessing!" This phrase has come to embody our group and sets the course for our day. I think it came about by trying to instruct the kids in how to behave in class. After going over several rules many times, it got boiled down to "Be a blessing." If a child acted up in class, the tutor or parent might suggest, "Are you being a blessing?" The conscience of the child stepped in and received the correction nicely (usually).
While it is a useful tool for instruction, it is also a declaration: "Be a blessing!" Think about it in a new light: parallel it with "Be a human." Can you be anything but a human? Nebuchadnezzar was given the mind of an animal and ate grass, yet he remained human.
In Christ, we have become a new creation (2 Cor. 5:16). Galatians 4 tells us that we are redeemed and have received the adoption as sons. Paul goes on to encourage the Galatians (and us) to remain in this new covenant--our redeemed situation. He declares, in chapter 5, "It was for freedom that Christ set us free: therefore keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery." So, we were made new creations, adopted as sons and daughters of the king and set free.
Paul is trying to set the stage for a point that he is driving at. He tells us our position in Christ then rebukes the Galatians, telling them not to be enslaved again. He even asks them, "Where is that sense of blessing you had?" Somehow they had walked away from their freedom and blessing. They had gone back to their old master, the old covenant, the old ways. They were, "turn[ing] their freedom into an opportunity for the flesh." (Gal. 5:13). They had turned from their adoption as sons and daughters of the king, to the bondage of the enemy again. They were operating out of a sense of need, not provision. The results were that they were biting and devouring one another. There is a long list of the deeds of the flesh that Paul lists that come out of operating in need.
But what was the remedy? Paul says that we are to, "Walk by the Spirit, and [we] will not carry out the desire of the flesh." (Gal. 5: 16) He says, "The one who sows to his own flesh shall from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit shall from the Spirit reap eternal life."
Think about this positionally. One walk is according to the promise, the adoption, the place of supply. The other walk is from the lie, the abandonment, the place of lack. No wonder the Galatians were biting and devouring one another. They were not operating out of their blessing, but out of an old life of want. They had the father's provision, but chose to live in lack. It was like Nebuchadnezzar being the king, but choosing to eat grass and live outside for 7 years (though his was from insanity, not choice). The Galatians were actually forfeiting their blessing by not walking according to the Spirit.
How could this be? If a child is adopted he can't be cut out. By covenant bond that child is of a new family: he has become a new creation. But can that child act as if he is not of the new family? There is the choice: to live according to the blessing, or to live according to the curse; the free or the slave.
So what is the answer for the believer? Choose life. Choose blessing. Choose to walk out of a place of provision. Be the blessing that you have been created to be. To do this we have to follow Paul's instructions to the Romans: "...put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh in regard to its lusts." That's another way of saying that we are to be identified with our Abba father and not identify with our old master. Only in that position can we receive the blessing of God for our lives. His blessing flows down to us and we can then give to others, and ... BE A BLESSING! Don't strive. Don't try. Don't struggle in vain. Don't eat grass with Nebuchadnezzar. Just rest and BE what your Father has made you to be: a blessing.
