The Blessings of God
美佳之窗 His Window 96（ Oct - Dec 2021 ）
Text by Rev. Phan Wu Chung
Translated by Stephen Cheng
In Hebrew, the meaning of ‘blessing’ is ‘granting of special and beautiful things’. God is the blessing Giver. The blessings of God include the blessings of the body, mind and spirit, and also of long life, wealth and authority.
In fact, God has been blessing His people since the beginning of His creation. The Bible tells us that after each day’s creation, God saw what he had created as ‘good’. Here, ‘good’ refers to the super quality of God’s creation, and it also represents God’s capablity of creating to display the purpose of His creation. The Bible directly tells us, “He created them male and female and blessed them. And He named them ‘Mankind’ when they were created.” (Gen 5:2) Based on the historical progress, we see that God has been blessing mankind, including giving birth, boundary and the various shapes of the creations. (Gen 17.16, 26:3, 48:4, Exodus 23:25, Psalm 65:10). When Moses led the Israelites to the promised land, God repeatedly showed them that He would bless those who would follow His commands (Deut 7:12-14).
From the above understanding, no wonder many Christians view God as a ‘god of wealth’ or a ‘tree that sheds coins’, since God himself promises to bless His people. In fact, God’s blessings do include the worldly wealth and many other good things. So,
when we ask God for wealth and blessings, how can we be blamed to be short sighted or shallow minded?
It is right to say that God is happy to bless us, and He hopes that we can extend our blessings to others as well, so that more people will be blessed (Gen 12:2). That is why we are asked to mutually bless each other (Gen 48:9, 49:28, Num 6:23-27), even those who do evil to us (Luke 6:28, Romans 12:14), because these blessings from God are not meant for us to enjoy only. Therefore, when we ask to be blessed, we need to examine our heart’s intention to see if we want such blessings to satisfy our own desires. What is more important is whether we have a close relationship with God or not. Doesn’t it look ridiculous, if we don’t even know God, not willing to follow His commands, and yet blindly receiving His blessings?
Many years ago at the evangelistic meetings, during the alter calls, the response from the audience was very embarrassing because only a few people would put up their hands (including the believers who put up their hands just to support the speaker). Later, the speakers had to change the strategy, instead of calling on the audience to ‘please raise your hands or stand up if you want to believe in Jesus’, they would ask ‘who wants to receive God’s blessings, please raise your hands or stand up’! This new method was found to be effective! When they heard ‘blessing’, they would instantly respond with their hands up! However, on hearing the speaker saying ‘prayer of blessings’ which sounded more like a sinner’s confession, they suddenly realized they were being deceived. Although such evangelistic meetings seem to be successful; but at the end, there may not be even one person going to the church!
The purpose of using this example is not to criticize the method of evangelism, rather to say that it is God who wants us to adopt various ways of spreading His Gospel (Colossians 1:28). If a person does not want to build a relationship with God, how can he receive the blessings of God? Similarly, even though we are Christians we should not take for granted that our future generations will be automatically blessed. God does promise to bless our generation after generation, but, if they do not develop a good relationship with God, the so-called blessings may not last.
Regarding the point of blessing and relationship with God, we need to take heed of the warning as recorded in the Books of the Kings in the Bible. The Book of Revelation writes about the future heavenly scene which offers Christians the hope of receiving the greatest blessings, but often we place our focus on ‘the wall of jasper, the city of pure gold, the door of pearls and the foundations of various precious stones’ (Revelation 21:18- 21), and overlook the most precious verses, ‘Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and He will dwell with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them and be their God.’ (Revelation 21:3) The English song “Christ Is Enough” relates our enormous satisfaction when we ‘possess Jesus Christ’, and it is also the driving force for us to follow Jesus. This shows that if we don’t have a close relationship with God, even we are well blessed, still we will not be fully satisfied.
Lastly, using Psalm 128 as a blessing, I urge you to pay attention to the key words: ‘Blessed are all who fear the Lord, who walk in obedience to Him. You will eat the fruit of the labor; blessings and prosperity will be yours. Your wife will be like a fruitful vine within your house; your chilrdren will be like olive shoots around your table. Yes, this will be the blessing for the man who fears the Lord. May the Lord bless you from Zion; may you see the prosperity of Jerusalem all the days of your life. May you live to see your children’s children - peace be on Israel.’
