Daily Blessing Compilation #3

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Allen Wright.

I found this to be the case, Daniel, that we can encounter some of our greatest challenges right after we've had some of our greatest success. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. I'm Daniel Britt joined by Pastor Alan in the studio today, excited about a book release coming from Pastor Alan in less than a month now. At February 2nd, the Power to Bless releases and you can pre-order it now and get a very nice bonus gift when you pre-order.

It's a free audio book. Also, when you support Allen Wright Ministries right now, we're happy to send you this beautiful wall calendar with a blessing for every month and wonderful artwork and just a way to organize your life, but start it with a blessing for every day. It can be yours for your donation this month to Allen Wright Ministries. So as you listen to our discussion today, go deeper as we send you today's special offer and you can contact us at pastorallen.org. That's pastorallen.org or call 877-544-4860. More on this later in the program as we talk about the calendar, the book, and really just speak a blessing into your life as we enter another weekend.

It's become kind of a Friday practice around here. Pastor Alan, it's good to be with you. When people have missed the blessing, what happens and what can we do about it if we think we've missed the blessing? Well, it's something I understand because in many ways, when I think about the precious people I've had time to counsel and pray with over the years about the difficulties of their families of origin, I have much to be thankful. But I did come from a home where my parents' marriage broke and my dad struggled with alcohol. I loved him and he was a wonderful man in so many ways. But if any of the listeners have been through that same type of dysfunction and disease, you know that it tears up a life and it tears up a home and it can leave the children feeling ashamed.

And I went through all of that. And I think, Daniel, there were a lot of people that probably experienced what I did as a kid, as a generation of us, that our dads somehow were, I don't know, they thought that if they affirmed us too much, it would go to our heads. So I know so many men, they just never really heard from their dad a positive vision for their life.

If you haven't had someone in your life speaking to you and saying, I believe that your life really matters. I believe God's going to use you in a wonderful way. And if you've never had someone be able to specifically point out your gifts and say, I see this virtue in you, if you haven't had that, then there's a part of your identity that never gets affirmed and fully developed inside of your own mind and heart. So one of the leading characters in my new book is really Jacob. And I see a lot of myself in Jacob. And so in some ways, the book's my journey and it's Jacob's journey. But it's the journey for all of us from unblessed to blessed. And you look at Jacob's life and I could identify with it, he was always struggling. If you haven't been blessed, you feel like you're struggling. It can be a life of strife.

You're trying to get yourself into the position of being blessed. He had a season in his life where he just sort of drifted. I think a lot of our listeners could identify with that. If you don't have a sense of destiny that's been spoken into your life, you can just sort of drift. It's a painful thing to not have a solid direction. You can have a deep sense of feeling like I don't matter and I'm not worth very much.

All this and so much more can lead to a life of pretense or perfectionism and all of these different things I think I struggled some with, Daniel. And so if you've missed the blessing, it hurts. And sometimes, I just want to say to our listeners, if you've missed that, if you never had a dad, maybe never had a mom, never had someone that just said, I love you and I recognize inside of you wonderful God-given gifts and I believe that God's going to use you in a wonderful way and here are some of the ways that I believe that your life makes a big difference in the world. If you've never had someone say that to you, then you may not even at this point realize how much the absence of blessing has left a sense of deficit in your soul. So a lot of what I think happens, Daniel, in the book, The Power to Bless, is first we have to be honest about the bad news about where our lives haven't been blessed so that then we can have this hunger and thirst to begin to receive blessing. And one of the things I did right early on once I began to realize this, the first thing I did was when I understood blessing, I asked my father to bless me while he was still living and he crafted a blessing.

It wasn't the most powerful thing in the world, but boy, I sure gobbled it up. And then I looked for spiritual fathers and I looked for mentors and I looked for people that understood the prophetic power of blessing. They can begin to speak blessing in my life and I began to learn how to receive it and I want that for our listeners. It's a big part of the reason I've written the book and it's also part of why we're taking these Fridays to speak some blessings to people because I find everywhere I go that most people have missed the blessing and they need it desperately. So, if you find yourself in that situation and maybe you don't have anyone who has or will speak that into your life, obviously today's program will do that, but you can even go deeper with a daily blessing from Pastor Alan. You have a podcast and a video format of a daily blessing that's been going on.

Yes, there are several ways that you can get hold of this. One, our daily devotional slash blessing comes in written form and a video of me sharing a little bit about it, an inspirational thought and a blessing. But we also have, Dan, a new podcast, very simple, just to go and get from whoever your podcast provider is, just go to iTunes, wherever it might be, and just get this daily blessing because what does it take maybe a minute or something to listen to a blessing? But I think everybody ought to start their day by the power of blessing. Boy, it's a discouraging world and why wouldn't we want to just receive with the promises of God and the foundation of scripture, a positive vision over our lives? It's very powerful, very simple, and very few people practice giving and receiving blessing.

You got to know somebody's in your corner. The first blessing that we have today is from the month of March in the calendar. And when you say somebody in our corner, we're grateful for all those who are partnered in financially supporting Alan Wright Ministries. And if you make a gift this month, we're happy to send you this calendar as our way of saying thanks. But let's go to March in the calendar. Well, in the month of March, when you hang this calendar on your wall, you're going to see inscribed there this blessing.

And it's one that I would just want you to take into your heart and spend a month looking at it. You know, I mean, Daniel, I mean, part of my hope would be that people might even just take and memorize these short blessings by seeing them so much during the month so that it becomes part of you. But today, open up your heart and receive this precious blessing. When you've experienced God's freedom and favor, but find yourself facing new, unexpected challenges, take heart. God still parts red seas. The Lord is fighting for you. May the threats of Pharaoh be silenced and the path to the promised land be opened.

That's my blessing to you today. That's taken from the well-known scene of the part of the Red Sea in the scripture. You want to talk about this passage? Well, this is taken from a very famous story, of course, where the Israelites are, they've been set free from their bondage and Pharaoh changed his mind.

Yeah. It's like a picture of so much of life where you feel like, okay, now I'm free. And then here comes another obstacle, right? So often, there's so often in life, I found this to be the case, Daniel, that we can encounter some of our greatest challenges right after we've had some of our greatest success. You know, I mean, I think of Elijah who defeated all those prophets at Mount Carmel. And the next thing you know, Jezebel is after him and he's prone to get depressed. So the people of God had been in all these years of slavery. And then through the story of the Passover, they are set free from their slavery. And they're on their way to the Promised Land. And next thing you know, Pharaoh changed his mind, sends an army after them. And there's the Red Sea in front of them, impassable Red Sea, and an impossible Red Army behind them, a giant army of Pharaoh that's going to breathe down and obviously kill them all.

And so they're trapped. Well, what happens in there is we know God's going to part the sea. But I just love the word that God gave to Moses, and then what Moses said to the people. We read about it in Exodus, chapter 14, verse 13, Moses said to the people, Fear not, stand firm, and see the salvation of the Lord, which he will work for you today. For the Egyptians whom you see today, you shall never see again. The Lord will fight for you. And you only have to be silent. You know, I love that the Egyptians whom you see today, you'll never see again.

And that's a word for somebody today. That's part of the blessing is to say, the threats that are on you now are going to be silenced. And there's some problems.

Let me just say this. I know it to be true from the Word of God, there are some problems that seem insurmountable to you right now, but God has a way. And the threats and the voices of those threats that seem to surround you right now, there's going to be a time by God's grace, you're not even going to see it anymore. You know, we've all had moments like that in our life where it feels like I'm not going to get out of this.

There's no way. But the longer I live, and I look back, I go, well, he always finds a way. So I think God is still parting red seas, figuratively speaking. In those times when you feel like, I can't go forward, I can't go backwards, I'm trapped, God makes a way. And sometimes it's in a very dramatic miracle. Sometimes it's just in an unexpected twist of his grace. But I just want to bless our listeners that if you feel like you're in one of those places with that unexpected challenge, it's time to take heart.

The Lord's fighting for you, and he's going to make a way. If you're like me, and maybe it's human nature, I often want step by step process. And here with Alan Wright Ministries, it's hard to pin Pastor Alan down on three steps to fill in the blank, a healthy marriage or a happy life. Because so much of the ministry focus here is on the freedom that the gospel brings and the good news, the departure from rules and regulations and religion. But when you get down to talking about blessing and communicating the blessing and crafting a message of blessing, aha, we finally have some practical step by step offerings for Pastor Alan.

So I don't want to say we got you on this one, but there is a lot of practicality in The Power to Bless, the new book that comes out February 2nd. It's a great story. It's a big idea. It's Jacob's story. It's my story. It's your story.

But in the end, we need to make it practical because this is something we all can do. Let me give you an example, Daniel. I mentioned this in the book. When Bennett was young, we played a lot of golf together. He was a golfer, something father-son activity we've enjoyed all throughout our lives. And he's a grown man now.

But when he was little, he was always a pretty cool, patient little kid. But I tell you, golf will bring it out of you though. And I remember one day we played and he was a good golfer. So he made a double bogey on the first hole, wasn't hitting it well. And I could see the frustration. Any golfer, if you're a golfer, you know what I'm talking about.

It is a really frustrating game. And now you could see it on that little boy's face. He's like, I feel like just quitting right now. And you can quit in your heart and have a terrible round of golf that day. But instead, somehow he pulled it together, pulled together his concentration, and he ended up playing a good golf round that day. Didn't lose his temper.

He went on play. Well, on the ride home, I said, Bennett, I said, you know, today I noticed something. On hole number one, you had that bad hole.

And I know how frustrating it is. But somehow, you kept your cool enough. And you went on and had a good hole, the next hole, you parted. And then you went on and had a good round of golf.

And we had a great time out there today. And I said, I just want you to know, I saw that. And in the Bible, there's a term for that is called self control. And I said, I just want you to know that I already at your young age, see a lot of self control in you. And I believe you're going to grow into a man who has a lot of self control.

And I added, in my experience of observing people, men who have a lot of self control go far in this world. And he's just sitting there taking it in, you know, you know, I look back on that. I mean, he was probably no more than 10 years old, then maybe eight. And now he's graduated from law school. He's clerking for a federal judge this year. And I look back over like just his academic career where he had such a hard major in college. And, you know, such a tough task, you know, at Duke Law, and he never minded studying for a long period of time. He never minded taking the long exams and all that. He just had this ability to plan it out.

And while other kids are just going and goofing off or whatever, he would hit the books. And he never minded that. I'm not saying it all came from that one little blessing I spoke. But I'm just saying that blessing, how long did that take?

Maybe a minute, two minutes to say that to a kid driving home. But here's what happens. A kid like that hears it, and then begins to go, oh, this must be who I am. I'm a person of self control. Well, what do you do when you have an identity like that?

You start living out of your identity. So that's the kind of power that is released in blessing. And I just think it's so important that the book not only explains all that, but then teaches you how to speak those kinds of blessings to your kids, your friends, your spouse, your co-workers, whoever it might be, because it'll change your life. And the blessings are forward-looking and forward-moving.

There's momentum that's created there. Do you have another blessing that relates to the spirit of victory? Yeah, I think that, you know, it makes me think of the mark of the Christian victory is Easter, which falls in April 4 this year.

So I believe this is the one that we'll have on the wall in the month of April, just simple. But open up your heart, listeners, and receive this. May every day be to you, Easter day, alive, with anticipation and faith and joy. You know, that's a blessing. I just want to say to our listeners, every day can be to you like a resurrection day.

Every day. The calendar mentioned by Pastor Alan is our free gift to you this month when you support Allen Wright Ministries. And we encourage you, invite you to join up and partner with us so that we can proclaim the good news of the gospel. See yourself in a whole new light when you come to pastorallen.org. And your partnership this month, so very much appreciated.

And it's just our way of saying thanks. This wonderful calendar that coincides with the new book coming out in just a couple of weeks. And you can contact us again at pastorallen.org or by calling 877-544-4860.

877-544-4860. The calendar is yours for your donation this month. And we have time for maybe one more, one more blessing as we head into the weekend. And this also comes from the calendar from the month of May.

I think this is a good one to send people into the weekend. You know, what you do with blessing is you receive it. It's the same thing to say like, oh, well, if somebody gives you a compliment, what do you do? Yeah. Don't say, oh, shucks. No. And then reject it.

Yeah. You know, to receive a compliment doesn't puff your head up. It doesn't make you proud. It just becomes part of you. Well, in some ways, you could think of a blessing as a compliment on steroids accompanied with God's grace and the power of God's word and the principle of sowing and reaping.

All of that goes into it. So it's like, I feel like I'm just, if you let me, listener, if you let me speak blessing now into your life, you let me be like a farmer who's sowing seed. And you never know how it's going to sprout in your heart, but you just let that seed go into your heart as the seed from the word of God.

And so here's a blessing for you to send you into the weekend. Child of God, Jesus is not beckoning you to act more calmly today, nor is he pleading with you to imitate his demeanor amidst troubles. Christ is offering you, granting to you his own peace, peace, Jesus's own peace be with you.

That's powerful. What do you mean by Jesus's own peace? Well, I think of the scripture where Jesus in John 14, 27, Daniel says, peace, I leave with you. And then says, my peace, I give to you, not as the world gives, do I give to you?

Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid. So I think the offer from God of peace is better than we make it, better than we think. It's not that Jesus is saying, I will lead you into more peaceful thoughts.

I'll teach you how to have a more peaceful spirit. No, he says, my peace, I give to you. It's Jesus's own peace that he shares with us.

In other words, think about this, that the peace that Jesus walks in, what he knows to be sure of security and the heavens forever, what he knows about our lives, all of that is part of his peace. That's why Jesus, he wasn't worried. And he said, don't be anxious. And what he wanted was to, I know he must have felt, because I feel this sometimes, like almost full of fear, sometimes like almost physically, I wish I could just give this to you. Anybody that's ever comforted a child and the child was afraid and the parent knew it's going to be okay.

You wish you could physically somehow just, I'm not afraid of this and I'd like to give it to you. I think that's what Jesus was feeling. I think he's like, I feel at peace. Even though he knew the cross was in front of him, even though he knew there was going to be tribulation, he had peace.

And the disciples, he knew were going to be troubled. And he was just like, I want you to have this peace. My peace I give to you.

So we actually have a share. Think of it also this way. Peace is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. So the Holy Spirit we have within us, who is that? Well, that's the spirit of Jesus. So we say the Holy Spirit produces the fruit of peace, but what we really are meaning is the spirit of Jesus abiding in my heart, mystically by faith, produces the fruit of love and joy and peace. So there's a blessing for you as you head into the weekend in the midst of difficulties and trials and whatever you're facing during pandemic.

May you have Jesus's own peace, his actual peace be with you. We're days, maybe just a couple of weeks away from the release of Pastor Alan's new book, The Power to Bless. And this book is not just a load of theology. It's not just stories.

And it's not just the practical step-by-steps, although it's all three of those things really. And it's also not just another book release. I think that's what we want to make that real clear, that this is something that is transformational, not just for one person, you, but it's something that can be replicated.

And that's our goal. If you pre-order, you're going to help shine the light on this book and we'll send you the audio book as a free gift as well when you pre-order. You know, Daniel, I mean, if I could just be as transparent as possible from my heart to the listeners' hearts, I don't write books to make money. I don't write books to try to be famous. I don't write books in order to have people draw attention to me. I don't write books in order to have people draw attention to me. I mean, honestly, I'm one of those people that if I could write it without my name on it, I'd probably do that.

The problem with that is that if you don't have your name on it, nobody will ever know where to find it and all of that. Here's why I write it. And this book, more than any I've ever written, I so want every person on it to understand what it is to be blessed. And instead of living a life of strife and drift and uncertainty, I want people to live with the certainty of the knowledge of blessing that is in Jesus Christ. And I want everybody who has missed the blessing, who never had a dad, never had a mom, someone in their life that spoke to them, an affirming vision of that, I want to be able to receive blessing. It's not too late to live a life that's blessed. And I want everybody to know anyone can learn to bless. Anyone can learn the skills of speaking blessing. You have the power to bless.

And Daniel, this book shows you how step by step. It's inspirational. It's Jacob's journey. It's my journey. It is the unveiling of one of the most mysterious ancient blessings in the Bible so that we can in contemporary use, today's world, apply blessing moment by moment and day by day, the power to bless. Please do go pre-order it immediately and join the team of people that are going to change the world through the power of blessing. Well, and Pastor Alan, thanks for spending some time today as we head into another weekend filled up with blessings, blessings of the Lord and hearing another brother in Christ just speak a blessing over us. Thank you for that. Listen to a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.