How God Is Blessing Your Life

Let's ask ourselves a big question. Is my life blessed by God? That's a question I'll bet you ask at times, something that is common to all of us. And then we'll analyze that, won't we? We'll base that on certain things and try to decide whether or not we feel that our life is currently, at the moment, at that moment, blessed by God. One of the ways that we sort of gauge that is Deuteronomy chapter 28. Let's go there.

Deuteronomy chapter 28 and verse 2 ties God's blessings to obedience to His laws. And all these blessings shall come upon you and overtake you because you obey the voice of the Lord your God. Blessed you will be in the city, and blessed will you be in the country, and blessed will be the fruit of your body, the produce of your ground, the increase of your herds, the increase of your cattle, the offspring of your flocks. Blessed will be your basket and your kneading bowl.

Now that sounds straightforward, doesn't it? Pretty clear. You obey God carefully. All of these things are going to be blessed. You won't have bugs in your garden. It's going to grow really well. All your kids will turn out great. Your work in the city, in the country, everything's just going to be peachy. Now, others, not so much. Those who don't obey God, they're not going to be blessed like that.

So what happens then when your health crashes? What happens when something happens with your child? What happens with something very important to you in your life? A severe trial hits out of nowhere, and it shakes you, and you do not understand what is going on. What does that indicate about God and me then? Am I being blessed by God? Our marketing department reported the two most Googled faith questions in 2025 were, number one, is there a God?

And number two, why does God allow suffering? Now, those aren't just two questions floating out there. Those are questions that you and I have from time to time. When you're in the deepest, darkest trial and things really crash, and your body or someone you love is being torn apart, and they are having an untimely death, and it's difficult to go through, and they're anointed maybe more than once.

And we pray to God and we beseech God, help this baby come out, help this person be healed, help this young child, innocent, who has a very dangerous life-threatening disease. And in that darkness, do you, going through it, does the situation you're in tell you that, yeah, God is here? God is blessing this situation. Don't discount the importance of those two questions. Those are two important questions, and they will come up repeatedly in life, and perhaps they should come up.

Why? Because Jesus Christ Himself makes them a top concern about us humans before His return. He says in Luke chapter 18 and verse 8, When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth? There's not much faith out there in the world, is He speaking to God's people, who will have had the brunt of Satan's attack, being hated by all nations, and in their times of persecution and sometimes perils, along with just their physical lives that don't seem to fit well with Deuteronomy 28 with what God said to the ancient Israelites.

Is there a God in this darkness? Is there a God that allows suffering in the blessing sense? I'd like to ask today, what do I consider to be God's blessings? That's an important question. What do I consider to be God's blessings?

Is it about our possessions? About the abundance? Sometimes we'll have some abundance. I'm like, oh, God's really blessed us. Look, there's something in the bank account. Oh, God really blessed me. I got a great loan on a car. God really blessed me because, I don't know, fill in the blanks. And there's some abundance. There's something that's unique, and it's encouraging to us. It might just be a really good weather on an outing. And those are blessings from God.

They are important. What about your health? All these things have an importance, but there is a vital blessing that God gives throughout Scripture that eclipses everything we've talked about so far. I'd like to look through Scripture today and compare the physical blessings that we get from God with the blessings that have a more mature, a more spiritually mature application that perhaps we don't realize and move up to the forefront in our consideration of, is our life being blessed by God?

So the title of this message is, How is God blessing your life? How is God blessing your life? The main blessing for the Israelites was a country, and God was speaking to that. When you come into that country, if you really obey me, I'm going to really bless you in all of these various ways. If you obey my laws, I'll physically bless you temporarily. And all those things were temporary things. And then you'll grow old and die. But you'll have a blessed life. The main blessing of God was them to obtain a country of an inheritance that they would go in and work to settle and conquer.

They would go in and work. A main blessing for spiritual Israel that you and I are is a country that we will go into through a work that we do. And both of those would be blessed by God. He would bless that work that they did, and He will bless the work that we do. And together, we will inherit those countries. Let's go to Judges 3 and pick up their story.

Judges 3 and verse 1, if they just heard what He said there in Deuteronomy 28, you'd think it'd be a cakewalk into Canaan. And wow, He even called it a land of milk and honey. Well, that's great. We're getting this land that's full of milk and honey. Let's go. Judges 3 and verse 1 says, Now these are the nations which the Lord left, that He might test Israel by them. Oh, well, this is different. Test Israel by them. That is, all who had not known any of the wars of Canaan, this was only so that the generations of the children of Israel might be taught to know war.

Well, that puts a new slant on a land flowing with milk and honey. They were going to have to work for it. War? What about the milk and honey? War? That means risking life. That means effort. That means this is going to be hard. This is going to be tough. God said, I'll be with you. I'll bless you. Verse 3, namely, He left the five lords of the Philistines and all the Canaanites, the Sidonians and the Hivites.

Verse 4, and they were left that He might test Israel by them to know whether they would obey the commandments of God. It's interesting that the New Covenant also involves us learning warfare, spiritual warfare. God is testing us so that He will know whether we will obey Him as well. When we do, there are some blessings that He really engages with us in providing so that we can win that war, we can conquer, and we can ultimately inherit our country.

When we think of Satan and his oppression, his opposition to the church throughout the Bible up to this point, all the way through.

This is the age of evil from Satan. We can see that there is a lot that we have to be involved in that's going to take a lot of work, and we need blessings to do that. We go to 2 Corinthians 10 and verse 3. 2 Corinthians 10 and verse 3. I'm not actually faking it here by turning the scripture and reading off my document. I'm turning the scripture to give you time to turn to the scripture before I read from my document. Paul says, for though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. Verse 4.4, the weapons of our warfare. Whoa, wait a minute. I thought the church was going to be a perfect place. I was going to come into God's church, and here it would be milk and honey, and a lot of blessed lives. We'd just sort of all be blessed and float on to the kingdom.

And then what's all this? What's all the trials we have? How come we have such struggles? How come we have resistance and issues? And what's this warfare, weapons of our warfare, that we need to become skilled at? They're not physical, but they are mighty in God. So God now is going to bless us as we war for pulling down strongholds. Verse 5, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.

That last verse is powerful. That's the objective. That is being ready to punish all disobedience with Jesus Christ. If we go to Revelation 2 and verse 26, one of the rewards to the seven churches we find there in chapter 2 and verse 26, he who conquers, that's that word overcome. It's the same word that the first horseman goes out conquering and to conquer.

The same word. So he who conquers, we're having spiritual warfare, he who conquers, conquering Satan, conquering our human nature, he who conquers, it says, and keeps my works until the end. To him I will give power over the nations. He shall rule them with the rod of iron and be dashed to pieces like a potter's vessel, as I also have received from my father.

So as we go now through this spiritual warfare and we're wrestling with God's help, Christ in us, we are being ready to punish all disobedience with him, which involves first resurrection, eternal life, power and glory with Jesus Christ, bride of Christ. So all these things are now working together as it says when your obedience is fulfilled. So right now we are being tested and the objective, as we've just seen, is a corrective rule of the nations with Jesus Christ to lead them into truth and then help them fulfill that original commission, original intention in Deuteronomy 28, that they would come in and they would be given a high place in the world, in the world's eyes. So notice here that blessings do not stress abundance in Scripture, abundance of physical temporal things. There's no place in Scripture where God says, now the important thing in life is for you to win the biggest pile of stuff that ultimately will go in a landfill.

That's not in there. In fact, kind of the opposite is there. If we go to 1 Timothy 6 and verse 9, 1 Timothy 6 and verse 9, we actually find several places in the Bible, including some by Jesus, some by James, but we'll just look at this one here. 1 Timothy 6 and verse 9.

Those who desire to be rich. Now, what is rich? We're all wealthy, but rich tends to mean having an abundance of something, maybe abundance of wealth, abundance of land, a bunch of abundance of cattle. Can't eat all those cattle. Can't use all that land. Can't use all that money.

We'll store it in a bank and see if we can make more of it. Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful lusts which drown men in destruction and perdition. We've got that. Verse 10, love of money is the root of all evil. Go on to verse 11 now.

But you, O man of God, flee these things. So we see now the weight of God's blessings isn't those things. Now God's blessings, believe me, they're important. They're good. They're encouraging. Physical blessings, they kind of encourage us to get going a little harder. Sometimes when things are down and you get a blessing, you can breathe again. It's like, wow, thank you. Thank you for that. Those are very good, and we'll see that later in Scripture as well. But you, O man of God, flee these things, this great temporary abundance, and pursue right, right in God's law, being his commandments, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness.

Fight the good fight of faith. Lay hold on eternal life. So there it is. This is what God is wanting us to grow in. To which you are also called. You've confessed the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. Verse 17, trust in the living God who gives us richly all things to enjoy. Look at that. God also gives us richly all things to enjoy. Joy. Can it all joy when you fall into trials? The Sabbath. We enjoy the Sabbath. We enjoy the holy days. We enjoy the relationships, don't we? We love God's way of life. We enjoy the results of that. We enjoy thinking about the kingdom of God and the millennium and going and observing festivals that portray those things. Yes, God gives us richly all things to enjoy along with physical things that he's made. The creation, the water, the skies, the mountains, all these things.

The goal is for us to lay hold on eternal life, to inherit that promised land, the ultimate blessing of God. But how do we do that? Verse 18, let them do good.

Okay, that's what we're here for. That's what God wants to help us with. He wants to help us with his Holy Spirit, Jesus Christ living in us. The agape mindset to do good, that they may be rich in good works, ready to give, not pile up, give, willing to share. That's sacrificing what you have. Storing up for themselves a good foundation for the time to come that they may lay whole on eternal life. So you see here God's perspective and his blessings that contribute to our achieving that objective of being in his kingdom. We all know that, but God's blessings are building a foundation of our integrity in the family of God. That's what he wants. That's where his focus is.

And sometimes if we aren't seeing that as God's focus, we might be judging that on how many lights turn green or red as we're going through town to see if God is blessing us. Kind of ridiculous, isn't it? But we'll do that. Or whether the car is breaking down, or, or, or, or, and we'll have these physical things, or my health. It's like, wow, I thought I was close to God, but now I've got put a name on it. Some of those things are disastrous. Is God there? Let's go to Luke chapter 6 and verse 48. Jesus here talks about what God is doing, and he's telling us that we need to be working, and he's going to contribute to the work that we do.

Work is challenging. Work is difficult. Work is great. If you have a project, I remember somebody here who once built a back porch, and it was a big porch high up in the air, and all kinds of complex things, right? It's a good deal. It took a lot of work, but it was good. It's good work. That's what God wants us to build. A good house. Luke 6, 48. He is like a man building a house, and he started, notice what he did first, who dug deep.

He dug deep. That's a lot of effort, isn't it? Mess up your hands, get blisters, keep digging, digging, digging deep. The house isn't going up yet. He was digging deep and laid the foundation on the rock. That's what God wants us to do. And when the flood arose, what a flood! Are you kidding me? I'm with God. I'm with Christ. I'm in the church. I'm trying to build a house here. I got it together, and I got a flood, and the stream beat vehemently against that house, but could not shake it where it was founded on the rock. That's part of our life. There are other scriptures that talk about what we have to endure and go through, and we will be tested.

But here's the deal. When the flood arose and the waters beat on the house, you're asking yourself, am I being blessed? Am I being blessed?

Think of spiritual houses that were founded on the rock of Jesus Christ. Some come to mind like the Apostle Paul. When he was getting the third time of whips with maybe metal in the back of them, going across his back for 39 times, what's that like when you start counting them out? I thought I was an apostle here. I thought I was doing the work of God. Where is God? Why is this happening to me? What is wrong in my life? God, can you do that?

God, can you deliver me from being stoned and ridiculed and I'm floating out in the ocean? You know what that's like at night? A night in the day, in the deep. Are there sharks out here? Am I going to get eaten while I drown? Where's God?

The apostles? Several of them at least crucified. That takes time.

You think of church members in Hebrews 11 and other places that were going through indescribable events in their life. And then slip your name in there. Slip your family, your friends, church members, you know, some of our prayer requests.

What about us during those times? When prayers are going up, answers don't seem to be coming in and we ask, where's God in this? And am I being blessed by God now or am I being deserted?

Think about Job. Job was the most righteous man according to God's own lips that was on earth.

Job had his children and grandchildren killed. Lost them all. Then he had his wealth wiped out, all of animals, as I recall. Your animals were your wealth. And then his health was removed, almost to the point of death. He probably wanted to die. I mean, just in misery with boils everywhere, you couldn't stand up, you couldn't sit down, you couldn't lie down without being in pain.

When we think of those things, in Romans chapter 8 and verse 7, we see that God is part of all of this. Romans chapter 8, beginning in verse 7, and if children, if we are children of God and heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, that is what you are. If you're baptized or if you are being called, if you're a child of a baptized member, you are being called. God's Spirit is working with you at this time. You are heirs of the God family. You are joint heirs with Christ, or you will be. Notice the word, if. But don't forget the first part. Heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ, but if indeed we suffer with Him, suffer with Him.

Sometimes an illness will come out of the blue on somebody, and we will suffer, or a child will suffer, or someone will suffer out of time for such events.

And if we indeed suffer with Him, and continue with Him, that's the point, with God, that we may also be glorified together. Jesus suffered. We will have a certain amount of mental, physical, anguish, suffering in this life. But first, 28. And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. So all of this stuff, from God's direction, has a purpose. It is a blessing. I'll give you a small example, a personal example.

When I was 12 years old, I essentially died. I had a ruptured internal spleen organ bleeding myself internally. And it was very painful. It got more and more painful as the day went on.

Now think of my parents. They're losing their child. I came to the point where the episodes of intense pain, more than you could even begin to describe, would hit. And I could count the seconds, 20 seconds between, hold my breath, and earn. Well, as the hours went by, they got down to five seconds. And my body became paralyzed. I had a minister, Herbert Armstrong, came over and he anointed me and asked God, heal him from the top of his head to the bottom of his feet. And I wasn't healed. I went down, down, counting the seconds.

Five, no, one, two, three. Ah! To the point where I was dying. The doctor came and had given me 45 minutes of life if I didn't have the surgery and I told him I didn't want it. And so that was it.

And that's a tough thing to go through. Heart for parents, heart for everybody. And I went unconscious. So that's a tragedy. I want to tell you that is my life's biggest blessing.

I wouldn't trade that for anything. Was it difficult? Absolutely. What did it do for me?

Why is it a blessing? Well, I happen to know that there's a God.

And I happen to know that He allows suffering for a purpose. Because as I counted the next time, one, two, three, four, I got to five. That's odd. Six. Holding my breath, waiting for it. Seven, eight. Eighteen. Nineteen. Twenty. I can't hold my breath anymore. I better breathe, but I better not because I don't want to make that happen again. I gradually took a breath and gradually opened my eyes. It was the next day. When you go unconscious, you don't have a lapse of time. It's kind of like fainting. If you ever just pass out faint, you don't have a lapse of time. And that day, I was in bed for many days, but I remember that day my mother was rubbing my feet, and I had had a very painful, they call it a planner's wharf, growing up through the bottom of my foot. So I'd been limping around, you know, as a kid. And she's down there at my foot, and she, the planner's wharf came off in her hand. And she said, look at this, John. He asked, I've got to heal you to the top of your head to the bottom of your feet. And this this thing just came off. They don't do that. So, okay, enough about that. But what happens in life is you go through life and you go through certain situations. An event like that, in a great trial, does not question the existence of God anymore. You know that God exists. Now, if you look in your life, many people will find right about the time of their calling, right when they were really coming to know God or God wanted to know them, there was some miraculous or profound event that took place in their life that helped them that one time to know that there was a God.

And the situation, the circumstances vary, but very often that's the one point in time where there's a miracle, a blessing, an intervention, some type of thing that gives us faith, that helps us build a faith. Now, later in life we say, oh, I remember God healed me. I remember God did this thing. Do it again. Well, typically you got it. All right. You already had that one. There's a difference between wanting it and needing it, right? So God is going to build things into your life that you need. And that includes some of these outrageous trials that people go through.

Let's look at those a little bit. In verse 35, all these things are going to work together. And then verse 35, who will separate us from the love of Christ? Once you really know who God is, and you know He's involved in your life, what's going to separate out of you the love? What's going to separate the love of Christ from you? Shall tribulation? Uh-oh. I wasn't expecting that in the church. Distress, persecution, famine, nakedness, peril, or sort. Let's remember the age that we live in. These things come to the people of God. They have in the past. We live in this little interim that's been very nice between wars. But Bible prophecy says that's going to transition into something else. So again, we might say, well, wait a minute. Where's the milk and honey? I'm looking at my life and wondering where the physical blessings are here. But as it says in verse 36, as it is written, for your sake we are killed all day long. We are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. Ah. So you see, God is partnering with you to be able to conquer and come through for something much greater than winning a new car. Notice in verse 37, Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors. What's that word? More than conquerors. It didn't say we're conquerors. We're more than conquerors. We're more than successful warriors.

We are more than winners through Him who loved us. We heard the special music today, a song about Jesus Christ and all that He gave Himself for. And that was for us to be conquerors and winners. He loved us. He gave His all. And we respond with great adoration and appreciation for Him and His Father. And we are to be prompted by their gifts then to join them in the spiritual warfare and the development of their mindset. Let's talk about God's blessings in the New Covenant then. God's blessings in the New Covenant. First again, physical things are important. This isn't an either-or. I'm not trying to bifurcate somehow that there's physical things and they're useless just because they go on the landfill, which they tend to do, including, I'll go into the land someday myself. These are temporary, but they're important, right? They have importance.

In Matthew 6 and verse 31, notice what Jesus says, Matthew 6, 31. He's talking about, let's prioritize. Let's put some importance here on the physical and also on the spiritual. He's going to tell us that the physical is important and He's going to help with that. God's going to help us with that. So Matthew 6 and verse 31, therefore, don't worry, don't be overly concerned saying, what shall we eat? What shall we drink? What shall we wear? All temporal, physical things that aren't necessary. Believe me, you need to eat. You need to wear some clothes, right? For all these things, the unconverted, they're seeking those things. But He's going to tell us to seek something else in a minute. For your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. God knows we need them. And He's going to help us with those things. But you seek first, seek in first place, first priority, the kingdom of God and His righteousness. And all those things will be added to you. Notice God is going to add them to you. If you're resourceful, you're diligent, you work hard, you're responsible, God's going to make sure that you have those. He's going to add those to you. They are important. And we thank Him for those physical things. But the priority is seeking first the kingdom of God and His righteousness. People often think of being blessed as maybe a reference to something big, bigger than normal. Wow, that's a blessing because it's big. Or new. Wow, it's new. Wow, it's such a new, such a blessing to have something that is really new and shiny, temporarily, at least. We might say, oh, I received a blessing recently. Okay, and you did.

You know, and it has its place, doesn't it? And it's good. But Jesus, again, didn't stress these physical things, rather a reciprocal relationship leading to spiritual maturity, that righteousness, seeking that mind of Christ. Now, here's the point. If our focus is mainly on the physical, and we're judging ourselves, like, oh, my health, my car, my this, my that, my relationship, or whatever, on this earth, if we're judging our relationship of God and His blessings with us on those two things, when suffering hits, and suffering is really hard, we're going to have some doubts. We're going to be a little bit unmoored. We're going to say, question one, is there a God? And why does God allow suffering? We'll go right back to what all of us humans do. We'll start doubting ourselves and saying, wow, is there really, is there really a God? If so, why would He allow this to happen? Does He love me? Why would He allow this to happen to me, or my family, or my kids, or my church? And is this a blessing? The top two faith questions.

Let's do an overview of God's blessings in Scripture. How many times does the Bible say God or the Lord bless someone? Answer seven times. All in the Old Testament. They were Adam and Eve, Noah and his sons, Isaac, Joseph, Obed, Edom, Samson, and Job.

Yes, Job was blessed by God. God blessed Job. All of those individuals, including Noah, with the ark and all that he went through and his sons, those are individuals that God worked with.

God blessed people is not a major theme in Scripture. We don't see those words going together.

Scripture highlights blessings, though, as God assisting those who are achieving a spiritual objective with great effort. Remember Israel going in and conquering the Holy Land? Us, spiritual warfare, conquering our nature. God assists with that, and God's blessings are mainly in Scripture for that. There's only one single use of the phrase, God blesses you in Scripture. And he's in part talking to us. Let's go back to Deuteronomy 16. We are just through Passover in the Days of Unleavened Bread, and we find ourselves now counting the days to Pentecost. And this is what this passage speaks about. This one use of that phrase, God blesses you, is found here. And today I'm using only the New King James version. I haven't checked these numbers in any other translation. And it can be applied to both spiritual and physical firstfruits. So let's look. Deuteronomy 6 verse 8. Feast of unleavened bread, six days you shall eat unleavened bread. We know that unleavened bread pictures Jesus Christ, our unleavened perfect Savior, in Passover. It also pictures the bread of life. Give us this day our daily bread. Jesus said, eat this bread. It's also referred to as part of the body of Christ that we eat in communion, the body of Christ. And it forms an objective as we eat that throughout the days of unleavened bread of, I want to be sinless like Christ. I want to be like Jesus Christ. I want to be like this. And we have a whole festival there about unleavened bread. Now we come to verse 9, in its Pentecost time, or harvest, festival of the harvest of firstfruits. You shall count seven weeks for yourself. Begin to count the seven weeks from the time you begin to put the sickle to the green.

Now, this begins to show us something. We are in a season of the harvest, the spring harvest.

The barley is in. The wheat is coming in. These are two harvest festival times.

Jesus Christ was harvested then as the first of the firstfruits. And it says here, from the time you begin to put the sickle to the grain.

Harvesting process begins with first tilling the land. That's a lot of work. Tilling, getting weeds, turning soil. Then you come and plant seed. And then that seed has to grow and be helped to grow.

And it produces grain, in this case, barley and wheat.

Now comes, as he said, when you put the sickle to the grain. After all that, you now are going out with a sickle. And it's very labor-intensive to cut sheaves and lay them down and bind the sheaves. And then you have to haul the sheaves to a different, distant place, wherever that's going to be. Maybe it's not too far. Where you thresh those. Now you've got to thresh these things and knock the seeds out. Get the chaff blown away. It's quite an effort. Then you have grain all over the ground or whatever you were threshing it at. And you have to collect that and bag it and go store it. So we can see here that verse 10, you shall keep the feast of weeks, or this feast of Pentecost harvest, to the Lord your God with the tribute of a free will offering. So now in combination with all of this, you take some of that harvest and you bring a tribute of a free will offering from your hand, which you shall give as the Lord your God blesses you. And there's the only use of that phrase, God blesses you. You see how God has blessed them throughout the whole process? It's as the Lord your God has blessed you through this whole process. He was part of it.

So God blesses efforts throughout the work that we do. It's hard work at times. It's tiring. It's challenging. It can be exhausting. Let's look in Hebrews 12 and verse 12. Hebrews 12 will be verses 12 through 14.

Therefore strengthen the hands which hang down and the feeble knees.

All right, this is what Paul is saying. This can be a lot of work. But strengthen the hands which hang down and the feeble knees and make straight the paths of your feet so that which is lame may not be dislocated, but rather be healed. Pursue peace with all people and holiness without which no one will see the Lord. Ah, here we begin to see the objective pop up again after all this effort and the weariness that goes with it. Looking carefully lest anyone should fall short of the grace of God. Wow! So what in the New Covenant, we might say the New Testament, what in the New Testament chapters and books are called blessings? Blessings. If you look in the New Testament and we look for blessings, it's a very good question because the word simply doesn't exist in the New Testament. Blessings isn't there. Not in the New King James. Again, physical blessings are encouraging, but they're not mentioned in the New Testament for some reason. But what are our blessings as Christians? Well, the term blessing singular in the New Testament provides us with an answer.

That word pops up 89 times. Blessed. Blessing. All right? Well, blessed provides, blessing provides an answer. Blessed appears 89 times in the New Testament. If we go to Galatians chapter 14 and look at blessing, it's not used very often, but in Galatians chapter 3 and verse 14, we find a, an important use of it here. Blessings.

That the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus. Remember the seed that humans would be blessed with? Abraham's seed, capital S. The blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.

So there begins to work what we call grace. Or if you look in page 68 of our booklet on grace, what that word, carise, meant in the time of the New Testament writing, especially by the Apostle Paul. It's a Greek word that spoke of an engagement between two people in a reciprocal relationship where they were providing back and forth various components towards an objective that would be reached. And so you have this promise, a blessing of Jesus Christ, receiving the promise of God's Holy Spirit through faith in us that generates repentance. And we respond with a repenting of our sins, which Jesus then and God the Father give us forgiveness through baptism. And then we are freed from slavery and given the Holy Spirit, which begins to work in us and develop things that begin with faith. You add to the faith virtue, virtue self-control, and on up through the layers to, you know, Ophelia, brotherly love, and finally Agape.

You have this energy that comes along that begins with God. So we're blessed in our plowing.

We're blessed in our seeding. We have to be fertile ground. We have to make it fertile ground for that seed to come in on us. And then we grow with God's help as we're watered with the Word, right? And we grow up into Christ and we produce fruit. And then that fruit gets harvested.

We're storing up treasure in heaven, as it were. So in 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 16, we see this interrelationship with Jesus Christ as a blessing. 1 Corinthians chapter 10 and verse 16. The cup of blessing which we bless is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? See, we're way beyond clothing and food at this point when we're talking about blessing.

The bread which we break is it not the communion of the body of Christ?

For we, though many, are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that bread.

We are loved by God. We are treasured by God. We are partnered with Jesus Christ.

We are blessed. But sometimes we need to stop and look at the Bible and ask, what are those blessings?

If you want to know what the blessings of God are in the New Covenant, I would suggest you do this. Take your favorite Bible app and do a search for the term blessed.

I did that. Search the term blessed. All the occurrences of blessed in the New Testament.

89 of them. 89. The very first one comes from Matthew chapter 5 and verse 3. I'll just read it to you.

Blessed. And this Greek word blessed has quite a bit of energy to it. If you look it up. It's almost supremely blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God. And the beatitudes start with that word over and over and over. Blessed.

And the objective there is spiritual growth and development to be in the kingdom of God.

Now that's how the 89 begin. If we visit the blessings chapter now in Deuteronomy chapter 28, let's go back and read verse 1. Let's put this in perspective because this is important.

Deuteronomy chapter 28 and verse 1 has more than just physical things implicated. You know, sometimes these prophecies, these projections are dual. There's the physical house of Israel. There's the spiritual house of Israel, the church of God we're told in Galatians. So in Deuteronomy chapter 28 and verse 1, notice what it 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 the nations of the earth. And we know that in the millennial reign of Jesus Christ, he's going to bring back those very people, those 12 tribes, and with him at the temple and the bride and Jesus Christ reigning, the light and the voice that comes from them will put them high above all the 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. But also in the new covenant, the spiritual Israel, the bride of Christ, God will set high above all the nations of the earth. Let's go to Revelation chapter 17 and verse 14. Revelation 17 and verse 14.

Breaking into the middle of the verse, the lamb will overcome them, for he is Lord of lords and King of kings. He is high above all the nations of the earth, and those who are with him are called chosen, are called chosen and faithful.

So there in in Deuteronomy, if we diligently obey the voice of the Lord your God, God will set us high, set you high above all the nations of the earth with Jesus Christ.

Let's wrap this up with some of the last verses in the New Testament. Those 89, let's go to the into the late 80s and we'll close this. In Revelation chapter 19 and verse 9, Revelation chapter 19 and verse 9, then he said to me, write, How supremely blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the lamb. You start at the beginning with blessed and it's the kingdom of God. You come to the end and I guarantee you as you go through all those 89 words you will see that reinforced over and over and over. Blessed are those who are called to the marriage supper of the lamb.

And he said to me, these are the true sayings of God. Just the next page over in verse 6. Blessed, how supremely blessed and holy is he who has part in the first resurrection. Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and shall reign with him for a thousand years.

That's the objective that God has for you and me and we're going to go through a lot of things. Some of them can't be simply described. They simply can't be. Physical blessings are temporarily encouraging, but the core blessings of God focus on a supreme being and his son who have given everything they can for you and me to enter the kingdom of God. Let's look for the blessings and let's make sure that all things are working together in our lives so that we can, having done all, stand with and before the Son of Jesus Christ at his return.