SortingBeans

Back to the Blessings!
It’s good to be back in this study. I have just been extremely busy with school, family, work and ministry! It has been good, but busy. Therefore, to return to this post of the series Blessings of God is quite a treat for me.

To review:
In the intro, I discussed briefly what this series would be about.
In Part 1, I discussed what the blessings of God are; essentially, that is.

In this session, we will take a look at who receives the blessings of God. I must say that my Scripture consultation comes mostly from Matthew 5; some of the most blessed of Scripture.

Who receives the blessings of God? Well, there are a lot of web sites that say, “How to receive the blessing of God,” or some others say, “You can receive countless blessings from God!”; to none of these I will direct you, even if it is to see the hypocrisy for a fear that someone reading it may actually be influenced falsely. To insist that one can “make” or “cause” God to bless them, or unlock some mystery of godly prosperity is to walk on dangerous ground, there for I will not be responsible for such a judgement.

When it comes to the natural observance of things, the blessings of God are impartial. Every day you and I are blessed with that which we are able to experience; I am speaking of life sustaining causes, i.e. sunlight, moonlight, rain, heat, cold, nutrition, relationships, etc. While there are some individuals who are unable to experience these things to the same extent as others, these can be identified as a generic category. But here the question must be asked, “Why are these blessings?”

Well, first off, God did not need to create this universe, let alone humans. If God (and he is) is eternal in essence, that is, he has always existed and has enjoyed an eternal the relationship with the Son and the Spirit, then there was no need for him to create something else to satisfy himself; God is not in need. Therefore, these natural experiences, which are not controlled by us, are experiences that are provided from God. In this sense, they are blessings. To the one who has no eternal security with the Father, it is my humble submission that this would be the extent of his experiences of blessings.

I must note, though, that such a person who does not know whether or not he has this security, or for the person who knows for sure he does not, is not exempt from experiencing the blessings that surpass the natural. The Scriptures say,

“that if you confess with your mouth Jesus as Lord, and believe in your
heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved”
Romans 10:9

It is not for me to judge who receives salvation, but for God to determine whom He will save. However, for the one who does not have this blessing of Salvation, the blessing that surpasses the natural and enters the spiritual, he will not receive the blessings of the Spirit. But, for the one who has received the Spirit of God, who has moved from the natural to the super-natural, this one receives the spiritual blessings of God. This is where I turn to Matthew 5.

When I really began studying these opening verses in Matthew 5, I began to fall in love with their meaning. It was R.C. Sproul who first spurred me into discovering the true meanings of these beatitudes though a teaching series I was able to listen to. Ever since then, I studied these beautiful Scriptures on my own.

For instance:

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for the will be called sons of God” Matthew 5:9

I learned what the essence of what this means. Here is my paraphrase: peacemakers is a two-part word, a compound word, meaning that it is someone who pacifies that which is broken, or binds that which is broken. Well, we must think, what is it that is broken that needs pacified, and why pacify? I believe the answer to what is broken and needing pacified is the human heart in depraved condition, without the presence of God residing in them. So, blessed are these peacemakers because they bring to the broken heart what it was longing for (see verse 4), and they will be called sons of God because that is exactly what Jesus did, but in a more divine manner. As it is written, Jesus spoke in the temple in the presence if the people

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed
me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to
the captives and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those
who are oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Luke 4:18-19

Therefore, the person who receives the blessings of God, spiritually, is the one who is redeemed by God. The one who is left unredeemed by God will not participate in the spiritual blessings that are given to the redeemed. This is difficult to hear, but it is true.

It makes me sick, almost literally, when I hear people promoting teachings that trample the truth of God. They teach that you can prosper and live well, you can invoke God’s blessing, you can make these blessings happen if you just ________. Really, it makes me sick. That is why I do not watch TBN preachers. Almost all of them make me want to throw my television out the window and curse their ministry!

I suppose I should be praying for them . . . and myself

God blesses us because He chooses to; nothing we can do will cause Him to act in any way in our favor. He is the author and perfecter of our faith, not us! So, it would be best if we could just understand sooner, rather than later, that we are blessed because God chose to. In our depraved condition, God chose to clean our dirty hearts, remove our disgusting sin, wipe our rotten faces from guilt and make us righteous in Christ. This is when the Christian should find a deep gratitude within themselves that can only be expressed through a life of worship.