God is a Creator and Blesser. He blesses what He creates. His blessing authorizes. His blessing empowers. His blessing positions.
The Hebrew “barak” means both “to bless,” and “to kneel” to denote the disposition and profile of the one received. The sense of blessing is to invest with favor, to expand on what was set up or created.
A related Hebrew word is berakah meaning a blessing or a gift or present. From this we can see the concrete meaning behind barak in the sense of a blessing. It is to bring a gift to another while kneeling out of respect. The extended meaning of this word is to do or give something of value to another. God “blesses” us by providing for our needs and we in turn “bless” God by giving him of ourselves as his servants.
Genesis 1:28 gives us the comprehensive understanding about God blessing what He creates.
“God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.” That’s a beginning point for God’s blessing upon mankind.
Blessing is spoken. “God blessed them, saying…” When God wants to do something, God says something. The Word that creates. The Word that blesses. The Word that heals. The Word that redeems. The Word that restores. There is a “commanded” blessing.
The New Testament Greek word is “eulogia,” to speak blessing or favor to prosper. Blessing is released through speech. You gotta say sumthin’! You can’t think about blessing and release blessing. You gotta speak blessing!
Blessing functions in Creation. God blesses what He creates. For example, you are a candidate for God’s blessing because you are God’s creation. This the sense in which I bless my enemies, those that curse me, and those who dishonor me – I bless them while not blessing their behaviors, because they are God’s creation. I am not blessing an expansion of their evil or accepting their curse, living in reaction to their betrayal. I am blessing what God created. Period.
Blessing is available for your destiny and purpose, what God created you to be and called you to do. You step into blessing by pursuing destiny and fulfilling purpose; you step out of blessing position when you attempt to be someone else or give your life to pursuits outside the will of God for your purpose. God doesn’t bless everything or anything just because you are a saint!
Herein lies the problem of people assuming they are blessed just because…they move into a formula faith blessing scenario and start believing they can bless anything and everything just because they quote Scripture at it.
They fall into the rebellion of Cain thinking “if I bring this sacrifice to God, He is obligated to receive it and respond to my demands.” Wrong! God isn’t blessing anything and everything. He blesses what He creates. God tells Cain to bring God what God wants and his sacrifice will be received. Obedience would position Cain for blessing.
God blesses the marriage covenant because He created and designed the marriage covenant. You don’t even have to be saved to be blessed in marriage. God joins people together. It is the covenant He designed that works; heathens can have a good marriage covenant because God blesses what He creates. As with all covenant blessings, people must keep the covenant to remain in position for the blessing; break the covenant of marriage and the blessing on the covenant ceases to function. You don’t earn blessing, but you must remain in position to receive blessing.
Blessing functions in covenant. Expansion and enlargement. In this way, God extends special blessings available to those in covenant with Him, blessings not available to others because they are not in position to be blessing by covenant blessing. In this way, God expands what He wants in the earth through people chosen, called, and faithful.
Covenant blessings depend upon covenant obedience. People in covenant must keep the covenant in order to remain in position for the blessing. They are not earning anything, not earning blessing, but they are staying in the target crosshairs of blessing.
Blessing comes in Creation and Covenant. Blessing also comes in calling. Romans 15:29, “I am sure that when I come to you, I will arrive in the fullness of the blessing of the Gospel of Christ.” In other words, blessing can increase, reach fullness, be limited or increased, and sent representatives have the authority of their assignments to speak the fullness of the blessing available in their assignments.
Blessing respond to blessing. When you bless, you position yourself for blessing. One aspect, not the only aspect but one aspect of blessing, involves giving physical things to God by giving them to His strategic work and leaders.
Ezekiel 44:30: “And the first of all the firstfruits of all, and every oblation of all, of every kind of your oblations, shall be the priest’s: you shall also give unto the priest the first of your dough, that he may cause the blessing to rest upon you house.” The principle here is simply that blessing what God blesses causes you to enter into partnership with the blessing.
If God is blessing the ones He has chosen, you should bless what God blesses. In coming into agreement with God’s strategic blessing, you position yourself for blessing that remains. We have heard this teaching carried further into the sense that if someone is called, chosen, sent, and anointed and we give money to them, we share the calling, choosing, sending, and anointing. There is some Bible basis for this conclusion but also a great opportunity for abuse; however, giving to get into blessing doesn’t always work in the sense that we can do a Cain sacrifice in order to obligate God to do what we want. We must respond in obedience to God’s strategy.
For most of us that is a very, very simple, straightforward process. The blessing is right in front of us and all we need to do is obey the covenant agreement to step into position for Divine blessing.
Blessing is available for favor and expansion of God’s purposes and your destiny. Blessing is not a general, Yahweh witchcraft scheme that you can use as you wish to get what you want. Some people carry the idea of principle too far: they assume that some principles always work no matter what…God said it so it will happen…but they are missing some vital aspects of the principles that always work, that God said. God is not blessing everything or anything; He is, in fact, cursing some things to limit them, bind them, and cause them to shrivel up and die!
Blessing is also inherited. The blessing of Abraham have come upon those who are not natural descendants of Abraham! Blessing is targeted toward God’s purposes for nations, families, ministries, and individuals. Blessing follow promises. “And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, and heirs of that promise God gave him.” Galatians 3:29 This blessing is received by faith through grace in the Spirit. Walking in, living in, and being led by the Spirit positions us to walk in, live in, and be led by the promise the blessing follows. The promise creates a target on us, but we need to stay in the crosshairs of blessing!
Blessing targets destiny and purpose. God blesses what He creates, what He wants. Proverbs 29: “If people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves; But when they attend to what he reveals, they are most blessed.” God knows what He wants. God shows up what He wants. God blesses what He wants. He isn’t blessing anything or everything. We need to move our obedient lifestyle into the crosshairs of targeted blessing.
