The Key to Blessings

According to much of the teachings today concerning blessings, the key to being and getting blessed is faith! But is that what the Bible actually teaches? Well, while faith is an important element in the Christian walk, according to the Bible, the main determinant of blessings is not faith, but rather; obedience!

In fact, there is no mention in the Bible where we are specifically instructed to ‘have faith’ ‘pray for blessings’ or ‘pray to be blessed!’ The first mention of the word ‘bless’ is in Genesis 1:22 and 1:28. In Genesis 1:22, in reference to the creation of animals to populate the air and the seas, the Bible says: “And God blessed them, saying, Be fruitful, and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth. (KJV) Genesis 1:28 is a reference to the creation of man and the text says: “God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it. Rule the fish of the sea, the birds of the sky, and every creature that crawls on the earth.” (Christian Standard Bible 2017) Note that they didn’t have to pray or ask God to bless them, God blessed them in order for them to function and do according to what God had created them to function and do! Being blessed was part and parcel to their creation, function, and purpose!

Deuteronomy 28:1-3 says: “Now it shall come to pass, if you diligently obey the voice of the LORD your God, to observe carefully all His commandments which I command you today, that the LORD your God will set you high above all nations of the earth. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you, because you obey the voice of the LORD your God: Blessed shall you be in the city, and blessed shall you be in the country. . . . (NKJ) Read the text carefully! Israel’s blessings would not come by faith or prayer, but by being careful and diligent to obey all of the commandments of the Lord! Let’s look at Joshua 1:7-8. The Lord said to Joshua as he was about to lead the Children of Israel into the Promised Land: “Only be strong and very courageous, that you may observe to do according to all the law which Moses My servant commanded you; do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may prosper wherever you go. This Book of the Law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate in it day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” (NKJ) Note the instructions! Joshua was not instructed to pray, to have faith, or to ask for blessings! Blessings would automatically come, if Joshua would be careful to ‘observe to do according to all the law which Moses . . had commanded.’ He was instructed to meditate in the Book of the Law in order to ‘observe to do according to all that is written therein.’ The Lord told Joshua as he did that: ‘you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success.” Again! The blessings and prosperity would come, not as the results of asking, praying, or having faith, but from being obedient to the commands of the Lord!

This is exactly what Jesus was saying when he said: “Therefore I say to you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air, for they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? Which of you by worrying can add one cubit to his stature? So why do you worry about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; and yet I say to you that even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Now if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is, and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will He not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Therefore do not worry, saying, `What shall we eat?’ or `What shall we drink?’ or `What shall we wear?’ For after all these things the Gentiles seek. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. (Matt. 6:25-33 NKJ) The Kingdom of God is the rule and reign of God, His righteousness is being in right-standing or right-relationship with His rule and authority! Therefore, to ‘seek the Kingdom of God and His righteousness’ is to seek to be in compliance with the commandments of God and in right-relationship with God! How do we do this? By being obedient to God’s expressed written commands! We’ve made it hard and complicated, but it’s really quite easy and simple! If you want to be blessed and enjoy the favor of God, just obey God’s commands!

No! We are not to seek to be blessed! We are to seek to be obedient! In fact, Jesus said that our Father knows that we have need of all those things, such as food, clothing, and shelter. Therefore, when we seek after those things, we are actually acting like people who don’t know God! For just as God provides for the birds as they go about in their ‘bird-ness,’ God will supply our needs (bless us) as we go about obediently fulfilling our purpose by doing what He created and called us to be and do!

It’s a ‘bad word’ these days because people want to be free from authority, even the authority of God! But the key to being blessed is, in fact, submission to the authority of God! This is what the church is supposed to be teaching! Not some ill-conceived, unbiblical, God-dishonoring blessing plan! The grand marching orders of the church is found in Matthew 28:18-20, where Jesus said: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”(ESV) Note that Jesus is the ultimate authority! Note also that based on that authority, the followers of Jesus are commanded to ‘make disciples of all nations.’ When one looks at the grammatical syntactical composition of what we call ‘the Great Commission,’ there is only one verb in the whole totality of words in verses 18-20! That verb is; ‘to make disciples.’ That is the only thing Jesus commanded us to do; make disciples! All of the other ‘action’ words, such as ‘go’ ‘baptizing’ and ‘teaching’ are actually participles! Participles modify the verb! Therefore, going, baptizing and teaching are the means by which we are to ‘make disciples.’ Notice, even here, there is an element of obedience! Part of the process of making disciples is teaching people to observe (to do, to be obedient to) all that Jesus commanded!

The old song-writer was right when he said: “When we walk with the Lord, in the light of His word, what a glory He sheds on our way! While we do His good will, He abides with us still, and with all who trust and obey! Trust and obey, for there’s no other way, to be happy (blessed) in Jesus, but to trust and obey!

Another Look at The Prayer of Jabez and Blessings

Prayer of JabezIt seems as if the church-world today is obsessed with the idea of being blessed by God, so much so that many are praying to God for God to bless them! To legitimize their prayer to be blessed, they often cite the prayer of Jabaz. So, I thought it would be a good idea to take a fresh look at the prayer of Jabaz in its biblical context. The prayer is found in 2 Chronicles 4:10, where we find Jabaz praying to the God of Israel. The King James Versions reads: “And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested.” (1 Chronicles 4:10 KJV)

Now at first glance, this seems to be a simple prayer request for God to bless Jabaz, to enlarge his territory, to be with him, and to keep him from evil so that it (evil?) would not grieve him. But let’s take a closer look and see if it’s really just that simple. First of all, in order to get the proper context, we need to back up to verse 9, which reads: “And Jabez was more honourable than his brethren: and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bare him with sorrow.” (1 Chronicles 4:9 KJV) Since verse 10 is joined to verse 9 by the conjunction; “and” we know that these two verses are conjoined in thought. So together they read: “And Jabez was more honourable than his brethren: and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, Because I bare him with sorrow. And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, Oh that thou wouldest bless me indeed, and enlarge my coast, and that thine hand might be with me, and that thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me! And God granted him that which he requested.”

A key to our understanding of the text is an understanding of the meaning of Jabez’s name. The name; “Jabez” meant; “sorrow, to grieve.” According to the text, his mother gave him that name because she bore him in sorrow. Apparently, Jabaz’s birth came after a hard and grievous labor or birthing process! Hence, his name was indicative of the hard labor his mother went through when he was born. But look at the text again! Right before we read about how his mother bore him in sorrow, we read: “And Jabez was more honorable than his brethren.” Now what in the world does the fact that Jabez was more honorable than his brethren have to do with his birth being hard and grievous labor? There seems to be no correlation! Taken side by side, the two statements seem to have nothing to do with one another! What does the fact that Jabez was more honorable than his brethren have to do with his mother having pain at his birth? At first glance; nothing! Unless. . . . we’ve missed something in how we have traditionally translated the text! Let me show you what I’m talking about! In verse 9, the English word “honourable” in the Hebrew text is the word; “kabod.” It has a variety of literal meanings, such as; “to be heavy, be weighty, be grievous, be hard, be rich, be honourable, be glorious, be burdensome, be honoured.” Now, we have traditionally translated the term in the text to denote “honor.” But what if the author really meant to denote weight or heaviness? What if the meaning the author really wanted to convey was the idea that Jabaz weighted more and was therefore “more heavier” than his brothers, thereby causing his mother more pain and grief in his birth than his brothers had caused her in their births? And as a consequence, she gave him the name; “Jabez (Sorrowful)” to signify the distress, pain, and grief she had in birthing him? If we accept that translation, the two verses together make perfect sense!   

But, wait a minute! If we do accept that translation, then that throws a “monkey-wrench” into the theological implications many have taken from the prayer of Jabez! If we accept that translation, then we must conclude that the prayer Jabaz prayed was really a simple request that God would not allow him to live up to (or down to) his name! Maybe, instead of asking God for the abundance that most modern-day readers think he was asking for, maybe Jabez was just simply asking God to bless him to the point that he would not fulfill the destiny that his name implied!

I raise this point because I think it is dangerous to try to set or establish a theological principle on just one or a few verses in the Bible! Aside from this text and the occurrence of Jacob holding on to a wrestler in Genesis 32:26, the Bible gives no other indication that we should be praying for a blessing or blessings from God! In fact, the Bible is filled with the idea that God blesses us, not because we ask God to bless us, but rather because it’s just God’s nature to bless. In the creation account in Genesis 1, there is a constant refrain: “And God blessed them.” They did not pray for God to bless them, God blessed them because it was and is just God’s nature to bless God’s creation!

Not only is it just God’s nature to bless, the Bible also indicates that God blesses or makes people blessed not as an answer to prayer, but rather in response to obedience! In Genesis 12:1-3, we read: “Now the LORD had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from thy kindred, and from thy father’s house, unto a land that I will shew thee: And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing: And I will bless them that bless thee, and curse him that curseth thee: and in thee shall all families of the earth be blessed.” (Gen. 12:1-3 KJV) God promised Abram that he would be blessed as a result of his obedience to the commands of God! We might also note that God didn’t bless Abram just to bless Abram! God blessed Abram so that Abram would also be a blessing! The same principle is found in Deuteronomy 28:1-2: “And it shall come to pass, if thou shalt hearken diligently unto the voice of the LORD thy God, to observe and to do all his commandments which I command thee this day, that the LORD thy God will set thee on high above all nations of the earth: And all these blessings shall come on thee, and overtake thee, if thou shalt hearken unto the voice of the LORD thy God.” (KJV) Note in this text, Moses told the Children of Israel that if they would just be careful to be completely obedient to the word of the Lord, the blessings of the Lord would “come upon them and overtake them!” We’ve got it twisted! It is not God’s will for us to be seeking blessings; it is God’s will for blessings to be seeking us! David said in Psalm 23:6: “Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the LORD forever.” (Ps. 23:6 KJV) What most English readers don’t realize is that the Hebrew word in that verse that is translated as “follow” is actually a Hebrew word that means; “to pursue, or to run after.” So the picture David was portraying was not that of goodness and mercy (blessings) passively following David like a little puppy-dog following his master, but rather it was that of goodness and mercy (blessings) actively and aggressively pursuing after or hunting David like a wild animal hunting its prey! The same idea is expressed by Jesus in Matthew 6:31-33 where Jesus said: “Therefore take no thought, saying, ‘What shall we eat? Or, What shall we drink? Or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed? (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.” (KJV) In the KJV translation, to “take thought” is to be anxious or overly concerned about. Jesus said that if we would just make the Kingdom of God the top priority in our lives, the blessings we need in life would come as a matter of course!

There is a pre-occupation today by many Christians with what the Bible says shouldn’t be a concern at all! We’re stressing for blessings when the Bible says we shouldn’t be stressed at all! If we would really seek God with the same intensity that many are seeking to be blessed by God, then we would indeed be blessed! Perhaps we would do well to remember that nowhere in the Bible are we instructed to “seek His hand” but we are instructed to “seek His face!” Yes! If we would honestly seek Him, then we would automatically receive all the blessings He has for us!