We had quite a different service last night.
Our Bible study has started in Ephesians, where we only read the first three verses. We halted on the third one; Eph 1:3-All praise to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ.
This tells us that He has blessed us!
The question arose, “What is a blessing?” or “How are we to bless others?”
The best answer is how do you want God to bless you?
I want forgiveness, salvation, grace, mercy, healing, deliverance, prosperity, to live in my gifting, and to be a blessing to others.
This is how He wants to bless us and we, in turn, should bless others.
What happens is we don’t receive what He has already given.
The only way we can receive the blessing is to come into that intimate relationship with Him.
Now there are those that believe God is blessing them when they sin. Like the dope smoker that says God blessed him with some great drugs.
It is written, your wickedness has deprived you of these wonderful blessings. Your sin has robbed you of all these good things. Jer 5:25
One of our ladies gave testimony about deliverance from cigarettes. She had tried it before but slid back into the habit.
She had scripture to help support her deliverance but wasn’t fully committed to it.
When she came to stand face-to-face with the Savior she was able to receive the blessing.
Then she turned and blessed us with her testimony and confession.
We can bless her with prayer.
In Deut 28:2 God said, “You will experience all these blessings if you obey the Lord your God.”
What blessings is He talking about? Well, you could read the rest of that chapter and find out but I think it is the blessing in Ephesians 1:3; the spiritual blessings he has blessed us with.
The nearer to God you get, the more blessing you will receive!