Have you ever intentionally blessed someone – besides when they sneezed? While it is deeply rooted biblically, it is often overlooked in our Western culture. Truth is – we are missing out on some amazingly incredible results!
The scriptures are filled with examples of all kinds of blessing one another and of course, God’s many promises of blessing for our faithfulness, obedience, and service.
One of my favorite blessings is from Proverbs 10:24: “Those who live to bless others will have blessings heaped upon them, and the one who pours out his life to pour out blessings, will be saturated with favor.” (TPT) How awesome is that?!
I could go on and on, but I am actually going to take you in another direction – not quite so warm and fuzzy. You see, while it is easy to bless our children and our friends, my eyes were recently opened to the power of blessing those who have wronged us.
To be honest, I have read these scriptures many times, but have somewhat overlooked them: “bless those who curse you, pray for those who despitefully use you. (Luke 6:28) “…bless those who persecute you. Don’t curse them; pray that God will bless them:”(Romans 12:14)
Seriously! How could I have ignored that directive in scripture? Could it possibly be that I didn’t want to hear it? While I am very familiar with the “love your enemies” thing; that seems more vague than actually blessing them. Blessings seem so personal.
I must admit that when I teach forgiveness, we always end the prayer with “and bless them, Lord.” But it is just kind of a phrase in passing to which we give very little attention.
Recently, I was at a conference in the DFW area, and a Pastor Kerry Kirkwood spoke on the power of blessing those who curse you. Oh my goodness! What a shocker!
He gave example after example: A marriage completely restored; the payment in full of a two million dollar debt that was a year overdue; and the ownership of a piece of land simply handed over. All of these things occurred as the result of blessing the one who wronged them. By blessing those who cursed or used them (in their health, finances, relationships, businesses, etc.) literally resulted in miracles for the one doing the blessing! This was a little hard to wrap my head around but there was no disputing the proof of the pudding.
Since hearing this teaching, I have actually shared it with everyone I mentor and have certainly applied it to my own life. The results are staggering!!!
Just this week my email was hacked. Help messages were sent to my entire contact list. What a mess! I began to receive texts and calls from friends alerting me. Although I was in the middle of a mentoring session, I stopped and asked the person to pray with me over the people receiving the emails and to speak blessings with me over the hackers. (What a teaching moment!)
Later in the day I received yet another call from a friend I rarely visit with. After assuring them I did not have COVID and I did not need help, they wrapped up the conversation with, “…well, I really feel led to send your ministry a donation of several thousand dollars.” Boy, did the enemy get a black eye over this one!!!
Friends, God means what He says and He says what He means. Perhaps we need to start doing a better job of actually listening. We have absolutely nothing to lose but everything to gain.
