The concept of blessing is not a common one among modern people. Some phrases are used without a true understanding of what they should mean. “Bless my soul” as an expression of surprise. “Bless this food…” is a trite ritual at the dinner table. “Bless your heart” in the South is often meant sarcastically with the real meaning anything but blessing. Posters in curio shops often say, “Bless this house.” Christians ought to be very familiar with the concept of blessing since it is scattered throughout the Scripture, but I don’t think they are.
We sing, “Bless
the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me bless His holy name.” I
wonder how many who sing that understand what it means. We understand the flip
side of the coin: our being blessed by God. “Blessed is the
God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with
every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ.” We
may not fully understand the “heavenly places” reference (more on that later),
but everyone knows what it means to say God blesses us. God gives His children
good things from the simplest blue sky and sunshine to the greatest gift of
all: our eternal salvation.
With our eternal destiny secure, the physical blessings God
showers on us are the frosting on the cake. John MacArthur points out, “[God]
has blessed us already with every spiritual blessing. Our resources in Christ
are not simply promised to us; they are actually in our possession…. The
believer’s need, therefore, is not to receive something more but to do
something more with what he has.” (John
MacArthur, First Love,
MacArthur Study Series, Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996, 33–34.) I believe a
large part of that “something more” we need to do is to bless God.
The idea of the children blessing the Father God is foreign
to many, so we need to discover what it means to bless. The Greek word for
“bless” literally means to speak well of someone which develops into doing well
for someone – blessing them. Paul told the Ephesians that God blessed us with
spiritual blessings, “to the praise of the glory of His grace.” The word
“praise” means fame or worthiness; “glory” means esteem or reputation. So,
follow me: God blessed us to make the reputation of His grace famous.
Ultimately, the blessing of God is intended to lead and empower us to return
blessing to Him.
So, we are back to the question of how we can bless or
glorify God. MacArthur says, “Because
God has given us all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies, we have an
unlimited supply of divine resources. Be sure to use them to make your life
fulfilling, to minister with the greatest amount of power, and fulfill the
purpose of the church that Jesus purchased with His precious blood.” (John
MacArthur, First Love,
MacArthur Study Series, Wheaton, IL: Victor Books, 1996, 40.) Speaking of spiritual gifts, Paul told both
the Ephesians
and the Corinthians
that their gifts were intended to benefit the Body of Christ. This explains in
part why our blessing is “in the heavenlies,” as Paul said. In the New
Testament, the heavenlies or heavenly places refers to the spirit realm.
Christ’s body, the church, is a spiritual reality with an earthly
manifestation. Our spiritual gifts benefit the spiritual Body of Christ, and
naturally that has physical ramifications.
In my life, for example, God called and gifted me as a
teacher. I spent many years teaching in Christian schools as an expression of
my blessing the Body of Christ. After I retired from teaching, I dove deeper
into my writing ministry to continue the use of my teaching gift. This blog is
one way I do that. One of my early writing projects was the novel, Wings
of Mentridar. In it I imagined the difficulties Noah faced while
building the ark, and I added my own fantasies of how God’s holy angels might
have helped him. My goal was to “bless God” by helping people realize that the
characters in the Old Testament were real people with real problems whom God
cared for. I also wanted to suggest a way the angels might have helped Noah as
the Scripture says they do for us.
Each believer has a unique set of gifts from God, and how
they use them is a matter of personal prayer and determination. Sadly, there
are many people who call themselves Christians who haven’t discovered their
spiritual gift. What a shame it is to think that God has blessed people, yet
they have done nothing to use that blessing for its intended purpose.
In “Many
Called; Few Chosen” I used the analogy of a mailed invitation to the
wedding feast God has planned for Jesus and His Bride, the church. The analogy
fits here too. Imagine God mailed every believer a gift. “The person who
doesn’t care what God wants might visit the mailbox, but he won’t open the
envelope; he will toss it in the trash unopened like so many credit card offers
and sale fliers. Some people will open and [see the gift], but decide they are
too busy with their own lives to bother with a [gift they don’t need]. But some
sensitive souls will feel a tug on their heart when they see the [gift]; they
think [using it for God’s purpose] sounds like a great idea.”
Paul
challenged the Corinthians to do everything to the glory of God. Certainly,
making proper use of God’s gifts to us will bring God glory. Again, glory refers to declaring the esteem or
reputation of someone. So, our every action should elevate the reputation of
God before all people – we should make God look good to the world. And by
blessing the church, we do that as well, because the church is Christ’s body
made visible to the world. That is how we bless God.
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