Speaking Blessings by Val Black
“GOD BLESS YOU!” or, “GESUNDHEIT!”
Everyone has heard this when they have a cold or hay fever
We all like to be blessed but how often do we speak blessing to others? When somebody sneezes we say “God bless you!” Or “gesundheit!” That’s probably about how much blessing we speak to others but do we know what it means?
The phrase “God bless you!” is thought to have originated in Europe in 1347. It was at that time the bubonic plague spread throughout Europe and other parts of the world killing 25 million people. Every day thousands would die. Horse-drawn carts went through the villages picking up the dead to be buried or burned. Drivers would shout, “Bring out your dead!’
One of the first symptoms of the disease was a sneeze. When a person sneezed it meant they could be dead within a few hours. Those who heard the sneeze would speak a blessing by saying, “God bless you”. They would say “Gesundheit!” which means “health” in Germany. According to the encyclopedia, in that part of the world, it was believed that sneezing opened up an area in one’s body where evil spirits could enter. Gesundheit was a form of blessing to keep out the demons when the body was defenseless. The idea is, that they spoke a blessing over someone else.
You might be thinking that it didn’t do any good to say “God bless” you because 25 million people died. That was one-third of the population of Europe. That leaves 2/3’s who lived and who is to say that it wasn’t the blessing that saved them?
The Bible tells us there is power in the words we use. Proverbs 18:21, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue: and they that love it shall eat the fruit thereof.”
The words we say hold a lot of power, especially when we share the promises found in the Bible. Those words bring blessings.
Words spoken that are contrary to the Word of God can become a curse. Prov. 26:2 says, ‘As the sparrow in her wandering and the swallow in her flight, so the curse does not come without a cause.”
There is a reason behind every curse and usually, we’re our own worst enemy.
God says, “My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.” (Hosea 4:6)
What we don’t know about blessings & curses can hurt us. What we do know will bless us.
Cursing isn’t just taking the Name of God in vain. You can speak a curse with words that are negative (or contrary) to the Word of God. For example: Parent to child, “You never do anything right, You’ll never amount to anything, You’re no good, just like your father/mother, etc.
But we can also bring on curses on ourselves with words. Self-imposed curses can come from words like, “You’re driving me crazy”. . . “I just can’t take it anymore”. .or.. “It runs in the family so I guess I’ll get it next”.. . “I can’t afford to tithe” (And you won’t if you don’t tithe).
Faith works both ways, negatively or positively. You can have faith in the Promises of God. That’s positive faith which will bring blessings. Or you can have faith in yourself and your own abilities, your own reasoning. That’s negative faith that can bring on curses.
But let’s not talk about curses. It’s more blessed to talk about blessings.
A blessing can cancel any curse. 1 John 4:4, “Greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world.” Light overcomes darkness and we are the light of the world when we speak and live the Word of God. (See John 1:5 and Ephesians 5:8)
We should be sure to speak blessings instead of curses.
The first thing God did after creating Adam/Eve was to speak a blessing over them:
Gen. 1:28, “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth. 27 So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them. 28 And God blessed them, and God said unto them, Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.”
When Esau learned that his brother Jacob had cheated him out of his father’s blessing:
Gen. 27:34 says, ‘He cried with a great & exceeding bitter cry.” Esau knew the power of the blessing from his father, Isaac. When he didn’t get Isaac’s blessing for the firstborn he asked for another blessing, and Isaac gave him one.
In the Book of Numbers, chapter 24 we learn that when Balak, the king of Moab, heard that the Children of Israel were coming close to his territory he hired Balaam to curse them. But God considers blessings so important He made sure Balaam blessed Israel instead of cursing them.
Paul opens every one of his letters with a greeting wishing the reader “Grace & Peace”. This wasn’t just a formal way to begin a letter, it was Paul’s way of blessing them. Peter did the same thing in his letters and John did in the Book of Revelation and 2 John.
When Jesus was ascending to Heaven He blessed the disciples.
Luke 24:50-52, “And he led them out as far as to Bethany, and he lifted up his hands, and blessed them. 51 And it came to pass, while he blessed them, he was parted from them, and carried up into heaven. 52 And they worshipped him, and returned to Jerusalem with great joy: 53 And were continually in the temple, praising and blessing God. Amen.”
What did Jesus say to the disciples as He was ascending? The Bible doesn’t say for sure but we have a clue in the Old Testament. That was when the Children of Israel were led out of Egypt, God gave Moses a blessing that was to be used by Aaron, the High Priest, to speak a blessing over the people.
That is found in Numbers 6:22, “And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, 23 Speak unto Aaron and unto his sons, saying, On this wise (In this way) ye shall bless the children of Israel, saying unto them, 24 The LORD bless thee, and keep thee: 2 The LORD make his face shine upon thee, and be gracious unto thee: 26 The LORD lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace. 27 And they shall put my name upon the children of Israel; and I will bless them.
Many commentaries believe verses 24-27 were the blessings spoken by Jesus over the disciples as He was going up to Heaven.
These five verses are known as the “Aaronic Blessing”. They are also called the Lord’s Prayer of the Old Testament. God commanded the priests to speak these words of blessing over the Children of Israel as they marched and traveled through the wilderness on their way to the Promised Land.
There are 6 parts to it. Let’s break it down and look at each part a little closer.
First, verse 24 says: “THE LORD BLESS THEE..”
What does it mean “to bless”? The dictionary defines ‘to bless” as to bestow or impart good of any kind upon someone else. Another shorter definition of “to bless” is “to make you happy”.
If you look up the origin of the word bless’ you find there are four different aspects of a blessing.
First of all, the Greek word for bless is “eulogeo”. . (you lo gee o) ‘Eu’ means ‘good” and ‘logeo’, or ‘logos’ means “word”. Thus, eulogeo means “good word”.
Every time we go to a funeral we hear good things about the person who has passed on. It’s a blessing spoken over a dead body. We call that a “eulogy”. My question is, “Why do we wait until a funeral?” A blessing over a dead person will not do them any good.
Prov. 18:21 says, “Life and death are in the power of the tongue”.
There is power in the words we speak, so we should be using them to bless others while they are alive. God has a purpose & a plan for every one of us. When we speak blessings to others we are helping them to fulfill God’s plan for their lives. We need to encourage each other by speaking positive words of promises from the Word of God. We can prophesy over others but not everyone has that gift. But all of us can speak a blessing based on the Promises of God.
So the first aspect of a blessing is to speak well of others.
Colossians 4:6 sums it up pretty well: “Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man.”
We said there were four aspects of the word blessing. “To speak well of others” is the first one. Not waiting to say it at their funeral, but while they are alive.
The second one is from the old German and old English meanings of the word “Bless”. The old German meaning of the word bless is “blood”. In both old German & old English, the verb “to bless” literally means to “consecrate with blood, sprinkle with blood”. That’s exactly what happens when we are saved. According to 1 Peter 1:19, we are redeemed “with the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot”.
Redemption is the greatest miracle and the greatest blessing we will ever receive. When the disciples were rejoicing about their ability to cast out devils Jesus said, “Rejoice not that the spirits are subject unto roil: but rather rejoice because your names are written in heaven.-(Luke 10:20).
Redemption by the Blood of Jesus brings us to the third aspect of the word “blessing”.
We are in a Blood Covenant relationship with God through the shed Blood of Jesus. To be blessed means to receive the promises of God and those promises are legally ours when we enter into the Blood Covenant by accepting Jesus as Savior. The world should see us as the most blessed people on earth and want what we have.
Ephesians 2:6-7, “And hath raised us up together, and made its sit together in heavenly places in Christ Jesus: 7 That in the ages to come he might shew the exceeding riches of his grace in his kindness toward its through Christ Jesus.”
Here is the same verse from the New Living Translation, “For he raised us from the dead along with Christ, and we are seated with him in the heavenly realms—all because we are one with Christ Jesus. And so God can always point to us as examples of the incredible wealth of his favor and kindness toward us, as shown in all he has done for us through Christ Jesus”.
God wants to use us as examples to the world of His favor and kindness. We have the assurance of salvation and so we have peace with God. God wants the world to see that peace in us so they will want it too.
Through the Shed Blood of Christ, we have prosperity, not in everything we want but in every need which is met by God. (3 John 1:2, Luke 6:38, Philippians 4:19)
We have spiritual and physical healing thru the Blood. We have deliverance from bondages & strongholds thru the Blood. We have the Peace that passes all understanding thru the Blood. (Philippians 4:6-7)
Communion is a time of remembering these things. When we lift the cup we’re remembering the shed Blood of Christ. Communion is a time to reflect on our lives and to repent of any sins we may have committed. It’s a time of renewing our covenant with our Lord. Communion should be a time we are crying out, “More of You, Lord, and less of me.” We have to die to “self” so we can receive the blessings of God.
That brings us to the last aspect of the word “blessing”.
The Hebrew word for “bless” is barak. It literally means “to kneel, to come on bended knee”.
To bless someone is a picture of a servant kneeling before his master or a man asking a bride for her hand in marriage. It would be like a person of a high position lowering himself to another person’s level to serve them.
Jesus Christ is the source of all blessings and we receive those blessings as we humble ourselves. We won’t receive anything from the Lord if we are filled with pride.
James 4:6 declares, “God resisteth the proud, but giveth grace (a blessing) unto the humble” So we should come humbly before God to receive His blessings. (Acts 20:35, Luke 21:1-4)
But there is another aspect of the word “to bless”.
You might say Jesus is the “Blessor” and we are the “blessee’s”. He gives the blessings and by humbling ourselves, we receive those blessings. But to give those blessings Jesus had to “kneel, to come on bended knee”. He was in a much higher position than any of us but He lowered Himself to our standards so that we might be blessed.
It’s hard for us to imagine God coming to us on bended knee but Jesus coming to earth and being born in a manger was God coming on bended knee.
Jesus eating with Pharisees and sinners is God coming on bended Knee.
Jesus living as one of us and denying Himself of the Glory He had with His Father is God on bended Knee.
Jesus dying on the cross is God on bended Knee.
Jesus ascending to Heaven and sending His Spirit to live inside us is God on bended Knee.
We think we have a struggle with our old sin nature and fighting off the temptations to sin but think what it must have been like for God to lower Himself to our level, to take on our curse to give us His blessings.
Besides conveying a blessing in the Aaronic Blessing there is a phrase that we don’t hear much about today. That phrase is “Keep thee” . . . “The Lord bless and keep thee”.
The Hebrew word for “Keep” is shamar. One definition is “to hedge around something with thorns, to keep and guard.
Shepherds in the field would make a makeshift corral with thorn bushes to protect their herds of sheep. In the case of a blessing “to keep” you is for God to build a protective hedge around you to keep you protected from harm, and to keep out the enemy who comes to steal, kill, and destroy.
So when the words “The Lord bless and keep you” are spoken, here is what it would sound like today:
“May God the Omniscient, the Omnipresent and Omnipotent, the unchanging Creator of the Universe, lower Himself to your level, to consecrate you with His Blood, to give you all the blessings stored up in His Heavenly warehouse, the blessings that are yours as His child through Covenant and build a hedge of protection around you so the enemy cannot steal your blessings.”
What is so unique about this is the fact that this is how God said for Aaron to bless the people. In essence, God was saying, “Ask me to come on bended Knee to bless, to keep and protect you and I will do it.”
The next sentence of the Aaronic Blessing says, “The Lord make His Face shine upon thee”.
David often asked God to make His Face shine upon him.
In Psalm 31:15-16, David prayed, “My times are in thy hand: deliver me from the hand of mine enemies, and from them that persecute me. 16 Make thy face to shine upon thy servant: save me for thy mercies sake.”
Psalm 119:135, “Make thy face to shine upon thy servant; and teach me thy statutes.”
Psalm 67:1, “God be merciful unto us, and bless us; and cause I, is face to shine upon us; Selah. -That thy way may be known upon earth, thy saving health among all nations.”
This Psalm is asking God to make His people light in the world so others will come to Him. Isn’t that what Jesus told His disciples, “ye are the light of the world.”?
- The word “shine” in Hebrew is “owr” (ore) and means to illumine, light up, cause to shine. It’s the same idea of the moon reflecting the rays of the sun. What are we talking about here? We’re talking about the glory of the S – O – N.
God is telling us to ask Him to illuminate us. To let us reflect His glory. It’s talking about His Shekinah Glory.
It’s the same glory that was present in the Holy of Holies. One day out of the year the High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies. The Shekinah Glory of God was so bright that before he could enter the room, the High Priest first had to fill the room with the smoke of incense to dim the brightness. Even then he couldn’t stand to look straight into it.
Listen to this in 1 Peter 4:14, “If ye be reproached for the name of Christ, happy are ye for the spirit of glory and of God resteth upon you”
Here is the same verse from the New Living Translation: “If you are insulted because you bear the name of Christ, you will be blessed, for the glorious Spirit of God rests upon you.
John, Chapter 1 says Jesus is the Light of the world. Then Jesus told the disciples, “Ye are the light of the world”. Jesus now sits at the Right Hand of the Father but in His absence here on earth, He has given us the Holy Spirit to live in us and that’s how we become the light of the world.
The moon reflects the sun’s rays from its surface but we reflect the Glory of God by His Spirit within us. In other words, we shine for the Lord. You might say, “But I don’t feel like I’m shining.” Well, there are days when every Christian doesn’t feel like a saint of God but we are. Whether you feel like it or not, you shine to the rest of the world. You have something they don’t have and it shows.
Think back before you received Jesus Christ as your Savior. Can you remember anyone that seemed to shine like they had a light bulb inside them? Then you learned they were born-again.
Maybe we don’t feel like we are reflecting the Glory of God but if you were to go to some places on this earth, places where evil abounds, you would stand out without speaking a word.
The Aaronic Blessing says, “And be gracious to thee”. That sounds like a nice thing to hear but what exactly does it mean?
When we come together to worship it’s because of one thing. The Grace of God.
Ephesians. 2:8, “For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:”
In a letter to the Corinthians Paul said, “But by the grace of God I am what I am: and his grace which was bestowed upon me was not in vain; but I laboured more abundantly than they all: yet not I, but the grace of God which was with me”. (1 Cor 15:10)
Another time when Paul asked the Lord to take away the thorn in his flesh. The Lord replied, “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” (1 Cor. 12:9)
The same verse from the NLT, “My gracious favor is all you need. My power works best in your weakness.”
Here is a part of the Aaronic Blessing that is a blessing just thinking about it. “The Lord lift up His countenance upon thee”. But listen to The Living Bible Version: “ . . . may the Lord’s face radiate with joy because of you”
Think about that for a moment. When we speak that blessing to others we’re saying, “ God thinks of you, may a big smile come to His Face!”
David prayed for this in Psalm 4:6-7, “There be many that say, Who will shew us any good? LORD, lift thou up the light of thy countenance upon us. Thou hast put gladness in my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased.”
Psalm 21:6, “For thou hast made him most blessed for ever: thou hast made him exceeding glad with thy countenance.”
God’s countenance also brings us help when we need it, “Why art thou cast down, 0 my soul? and why art thou disquieted in me? hope thou in God: for I shall yet praise him for the help of his countenance.” (Psalm 43:5)
There’s something else about God’s countenance that we all need to experience His joy.
Psalm 90:8, “Thou hast set our iniquities before thee, our secret sins in the light of thy countenance. The light of His countenance exposes our sins. The Light of His countenance gives us direction in life.
Psalm 16:11 says, “Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore.
In Numbers 6:26, the last part of the Aaronic Blessing says, “and give thee peace”.
The ultimate blessing is to have peace with God. If we have peace with God we will have peace with ourselves and peace with everyone else. When we don’t have peace with God or anyone else is when we’re not walking with God and the world is full of things that will try and prevent us from walking with God.
1 John 2:15-17, “Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. 16 For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. and the world passeth away, and the lust thereof.- but he that doeth the will of God abideth for ever.”
Even enemies will be at peace with us: Prov. 16:7, “When a man’s ways please the LORD, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.”
God gave the Aaronic Blessing to the priests of Israel because He wants to bless His people. And it didn’t end with the Old Testament.
Verse 27, Numbers 6 says, “Whenever Aaron and his sons bless the people of Israel in my name, I myself will bless them.”.” (The New Living Translation)
God wants to come to us to bring us blessings from Heaven. He wants to shine His face on us so we can reflect His glory to others. He wants to build a hedge of protection around us so nothing can come between Him, His Grace, His peace & our blessings. That’s the Heart of God for us because we are in a Covenant with Him through the Blood of Jesus Christ.
When Jesus hung on that Cross, God came to us to give us far more than we can ever imagine or even deserve. There was a “Great Exchange” that occurred 2000 years ago in the city of Jerusalem.
Jesus was punished so that we might be forgiven. Jesus was wounded, so we might be healed. Jesus was made sin with our sinfulness so that we might become righteous with His righteousness. Jesus died our death so that we might share His life with us. Jesus became poor with our poverty so that we might share His glory. Jesus endured our rejection so that we might have His acceptance as children of God. Jesus became a curse, and we might receive a blessing.
In closing:
THE LORD BLESS THEE AND KEEP THEE, THE LORD MAKE HIS FACE SHINE UPON THEE AND BE GRACIOUS UNTO THEE – THE LORD LIFT UP HIS COUNTENANCE UPON THEE AND GIVE THEE PEACE!