Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.
Blessing itself is powerful, but to say the power to bless means anybody can do this. 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, excited for you today to hear as we jump into our Friday tradition, The Power of Blessing with Pastor Alan here in the studio. Stepping aside from our normal programming each Friday this month in anticipation of Pastor Alan's new book, The Power to Bless. It releases nationwide on February 2nd through Baker Books. Of course, we encourage you to pre-order through Amazon.
You'll get a free copy of the audiobook if you do that. And if you're not able to stay with us for our entire discussion today, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It's a calendar, The Power to Bless calendar for the year 2021 that we're now in, and it can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. So, as you listen to today's discussion, go deeper as we send you this beautiful calendar that can be a blessing for your life every day, every month as we move forward. Contact us at PastorAlan.org, PastorAlan.org, or call 877-544-4860.
That's 877-544-4860. We'll have more on that as we go throughout today. Pastor Alan, we've talked about this several times before. This is not just another book by someone who has spent a lot of their life now writing books.
You're quite excited, and I am too about this, because to be honest, and this is, I wanted to kind of start off with this question. The word blessing, especially in the life of a Christian, is not an uncommon word, but I think sometimes it's kind of a bland word. Most of us think of it as something we say before a meal, a blessing, or it's just a Christianese kind of a churchy word that we don't unpack until it's full of stuff. Well, and I think the funny thing, you know, it's still, it's not quite the craze that it was, you know, a little while ago, but, you know, you see the hashtag blessed, and it trivializes blessing, doesn't it?
At one point, I thought about calling the book Beyond Hashtag Blessed, because, I don't know, you know, some celebrity has just had, got a new car or something that said hashtag blessed, you know, and it just sort of trivializes it. And sometimes, you know, somebody sneezes when they say, God bless you. And I think very few Christians have actually had much teaching about this and realized that a blessing is one of the deepest spiritual forces in the world. It is, in many ways, the release of real power.
It is something that anybody can learn to do. And blessing has irrevocable impact. It does good, no matter what. It's like sowing seed. It is like speaking a word of affirmation, but blessing is more than that. It's so important that God blessed Adam and Eve and then said, be fruitful and multiply. Productivity is something that is empowered by blessing. So blessing is not the reward for your fruitfulness.
It's the fuel for it. And when you see the Hebrew patriarchs blessing their sons and their grandson and granddaughters, why is that there? And why is it that when Jesus comes, everybody wants their children.
They bring him to just please lay hands on and bless my children. It's because the ancient world, I think, understood more than we, that there is a very real mystical yet practical thing that happens when someone speaks a positive vision over your life. And when that positive vision is joined by faith and is grounded in the word of God, then this is a powerful mode of transformation in our lives.
And yet it's not understood very much. So the power to bless, coming out in February, is about my journey to that blessing. It is about an ancient blessing and how one of the blessings described in the Bible is actually a great model for us. And in the end, the great thing, Daniel, is that it teaches how anybody can learn to bless. It actually is a skill you can gain.
You can train yourself in it. So parents, if you're feeling like you're frustrated with in the past, you tended to speak words to your kids, you'd rather take them back now, you'd like to learn a better way, you can train yourself to speak blessing even when you're disciplined. Coaches, teachers, when you're trying to inspire people, there's a better way, the power of blessing. And certainly to husbands and wives, friends to one another, it's God's way of transformation, the power to bless. So as a pastor, what was the point for you where you decided to dive deeper into this? Was it, did you just get curious, the order of service in your faith tradition has a benediction or a blessing at the end of the story? You said, well, let's go deeper.
What is this? Well, honestly, it began early in my married life where, you know, thankfully I was never that person, that husband that was, you know, just speaking out curse. And by curse, we don't mean cuss words. We mean negative forecasts, you know, but I realized that a lot of my life and speech in the way I thought, and sometimes spoke to my wife and other, it was not powerful and could sometimes be negative. And I remember thinking, I don't want to live like that. And I began to learn a little bit about blessing.
Not much has been written about it, but I began to learn a little bit about it. And there was a time, Daniel, that my dad, and there was a time, Daniel, that my dad, who had struggles off and on with alcohol throughout his life, was doing much better. And we, my two brothers and I, we had some counseling sessions with my dad. And I was very eager for those times to be able to have some conversations that would be healing. And one day I just said, with the counselor, I said, you know, there's something I really like for my dad. And I would like, I said, dad, I'd like you to bless me. Well, he didn't really know what I was talking about.
And interesting, the counselor didn't really know what I was talking about. I said, well, I mean, like the Hebrew patriarchs where you speak a positive vision over someone's life. I just wanted it, even though I just needed to ask him for it. And he came back to the next session and he'd crafted a little blessing. It wasn't particularly, you know, powerful. It wasn't really biblically based or anything like that, but, um, the words he shared, I cherished gobbled him up like a starving person. And it, it really began a journey where I began to realize I need whatever I missed from my dad, as much as I loved him, I missed, I missed a lot of that blessing.
It wasn't there for a lot of the time. And it was, he was one of those dads that always heard, you know, other people would say, he just brags about you all the time, but seldom to me. Yeah.
And I think a lot of our listeners right now could identify with that. Maybe you had a father who just never was able to look you in the eye, call out your gifts, affirm who you are, and speak a wonderful destiny of your life. Something Daniel, that by the way, once we began to learn of this more and more and incorporate in our lives, it just becomes a part of who you are.
Yeah. So that's just the way we raised our kids just by speaking blessing over their life. And anyone can learn to do this. So the book itself is, uh, it's my journey, but it's also the journey of the word of God. And then it ends with all the practical help that anyone would ever need to make this your way of being as well. The power to bless can change your life. The book can be pre-ordered right now, like through amazon.com. And if you do pre-order before the book is formally on sale, releasing February 2nd, then as an incentive, you are receiving as a no extra charge, the audio book copy of The Power to Bless.
It's a real value. And so that way you can read the book, or if you're in the car, you listen to the book and you can make your way through it that way. But more than anything, Daniel, you know, I want all our listeners and our friends to know, it really makes a difference, doesn't it? When you pre-order with Amazon, it, um, it draws attention to the book, which then further helps other people.
And let's face it, the devil's working overtime and got people on the internet everywhere trying to spread curse. And we need partners that are going to help us spread The Power of Blessing. Pre-ordering the book is one good way to do it.
Absolutely. And our special product of the month of this month, in addition to talking about the book, is this calendar. When you support Alan Wright Ministries with a gift of any size right now, we'll be happy to send this beautiful inspirational wall calendar featuring a blessing each month your way.
When you contact us at pastoralan.org, learn about the book, learn about the calendar, support the ministry, pastoralan.org, or when you call 877-544-4860, 877-544-4860. Well, let's get down to an actual blessing, Pastor Alan. How about sharing with us the February blessing from the calendar? So on the, on the calendar this, this month, the month of February, what you'll see every day of the beautifully inscribed is, is this blessing that is the sort of lens through which all of the book, The Power to Bless gets built. And it's because it's rooted in the most important family blessing, probably in the Bible. In fact, you could say, Daniel, that this blessing, the blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh, is the most important blessing of the Bible. Let me, let me speak this blessing. Listeners, open up your heart. Wherever you are, if you're riding down the road in the car, you just open up your heart and receive it. That's what you do with blessing. You don't, you don't necessarily analyze it. You just take it in. It's kind of like a compliment.
If somebody says compliment, the proper response is, why thank you, I'll receive that, right? So that's what you do with the blessing and let me speak it and then we'll talk some about it. May God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh, like the grandsons Jacob adopted as heirs, secure forever.
Like Manasseh, one who has forgotten yesterday's troubles. Like Ephraim, one who is twice fruitful, like Jacob's crossed hands, favored by God forever. Now this blessing is central to your new book, The Power to Bless, it releases February 2nd.
You want to tell us about that? Well, I've always been fascinated by this blessing and let's just start with this, that this is interesting, isn't it? That in the scripture, Hebrew fathers are told to bless their children saying, may God make you as Ephraim and Manasseh. So every Sabbath in faithful Jewish homes there's a father and he's saying to his sons, he's saying, may God make you as Ephraim and Manasseh, laying his hands on them and speaking this blessing over them. May God make you as Ephraim and Manasseh. And what is so fascinating to me is that though it is the blessing that is spoken over every single Hebrew child, no one seems to know why.
I read almost everything I could about what rabbis suggestions were as to why Ephraim and Manasseh. These are such obscure children. They're the grandsons of Jacob, Joseph's sons. And we don't learn much about anything in their lives.
They're obscure. If you were going to speak a blessing over every child in the whole Jewish faith, wouldn't you think you would say, may the Lord make you like Abraham and Isaac, or the Lord make you like David and Solomon, or the Lord make you like Moses and Joshua? Why Ephraim and Manasseh? Well that sent me some years ago onto a journey of what is this story all about? And what I realize, and this is much of the substance of the book by way of preview, is I think hidden in here is the model for blessing. That in the first place there's something about the fact that as Jacob blesses them, first the text tells us in Genesis 48, he adopted them.
It's very interesting. Jacob is blessing the sons of Joseph, but Jacob adopts the grandsons. And why does he do it? He does this because that means they're going to have a portion of the promised land.
Because Jacob is going to be dividing up the land with his 12 sons. And this means since they're adopted, he says, you're going to be treated just like my sons, like Reuben and Sibian. It's a fascinating thing. Adoption is one of the most beautiful and powerful images in the Bible. And it really is the picture of who we are in Christ.
We're adopted. We're chosen in Him. And so I think when you bless, you are finding a lot of different ways to say you're accepted. See when you withhold blessing, you're saying to someone, you're not acceptable now. But when you bless them, you're saying you are acceptable. The other thing that you see in the Ephraim and Manasseh blessing is I think something hidden in their names.
Manasseh means forgotten, like forgotten all of yesterday's troubles. And so when you bless someone, I think what you're saying is your life isn't going to be shaped by yesterday's mistakes. Your life isn't going to be held back by all of the baggage from previous years. Your life isn't going to be ruined because of sin in the past or wounds that have been afflicted against you.
No, you can start afresh today. So you bless people so that they forget their troubles and they can walk in the grace of God. The name Ephraim means twice fruitful. So I think when you bless people to be as Ephraim in Manasseh, you're not just saying, may you start afresh today knowing you're not held back by the past. But you're also saying, may God make you twice as fruitful as you ever would have been on your own power.
But the story, and this sort of gives away one of the, you just got to read the book because it's the pinnacle of it. Jacob does a weird thing. He crosses his hands when he blesses these two sons and he puts his right hand on the younger, Ephraim, and his left hand on Manasseh. And that is just improper because the firstborn was supposed to get the right hand, which is a symbolic gesture of the greater blessing. It was just a privilege of the firstborn. And Joseph said, dad, no, no. He tried to put his hands back into the right order. And Jacob said, oh no, I know what I'm doing.
I know what I'm doing. I just think it's a picture of favor. The younger receives the greater blessing. And we who are in Christ, we are like the second born.
He's the firstborn of all creation. He deserved nothing but blessing. But instead, God has extended to us his right hand of blessing. So it's all about favor.
And so that's in a snapshot what the Jacob's blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh is all about. It's exceedingly interesting and powerful. And I draw from that, it's about favor, but it's also, it's progressive.
It's very forward-looking. Yes. Everything about blessing is moving you into a positive future.
Yeah. Blessing you into a destiny, blessing you into a future. That's what we want for our kids. That's what we want for our spouse. That's what we want for our friends. And even we're supposed to bless our enemies.
It's powerful fuel for transformation. With Pastor Alan here in the studio today and a special Friday broadcast as we send you into the weekend with a blessing. And Pastor Alan has a new book and it's not just any old new book release. This is really one that you'll want to put your hands on and pre-order.
That's our big encouragement to you. If you could help really scatter this blessing and the thought of a blessing into a world filled with darkness and curse by pre-ordering, you're going to help propel that. And you also get, as I was saying, thanks, a free copy of the audio book when you pre-order. You describe in the book how Jacob finally in his old age understood grace and he looked back over his life differently. And really you start thinking about grace more in the New Testament.
So this is very interesting. But talk about this part and another scriptural blessing to empower our listeners today. Well, I think the thing that is in many ways, the book is my journey and it's Jacob's journey.
And it's anyone's journey who travels from places of condemnation, law, and a feeling of being unblessed to the blessing of God. And Jacob's journey was a long one. You know, Jacob from the time he was born was struggling to get himself in first place.
Jacob didn't feel blessed and he is always trying to be blessed. You know, he was the one who stole his brother's birthright by first selling him some stew. But then later he tricked his aged blind father Isaac. He tricked him. And Jacob pretended to be Esau so that Isaac would bless Jacob instead of Esau. And well, he did so and Jacob was just a conniver. He struggled in love. He worked for seven years to get Rachel.
He was fearful of Esau. And then his beloved, beloved son, Joseph. Well, he thought that Joseph had been killed and he lived most of his life in agony, thinking about that in a grievous way. At the end of his life, Jacob was reunited with Joseph. At the end of his life, I think, Daniel, that Jacob finally got it. I think he finally realized, I have been blessed.
I just didn't know it. So when he crossed his arms and he blessed those boys, I think he was saying, I know what I'm doing now. I really understand grace and the power of blessing. Sometimes you can be living a blessed life and not know it because the circumstances are not showing it.
And I think that if you look only at your circumstances, you can go, I don't feel very blessed. But the reality is that in Christ, you're blessed with every spiritual blessing. So I think it's just important that we start out every day, every month with blessing. And that's why we put together a beautiful wall calendar this month. That's our thank you to our donors this month. And one of those blessings that will appear is in the month of November.
It's the month we celebrate Thanksgiving. So it seemed appropriate to me to craft a blessing related to all of this that comes from Psalm 103. And so, listeners, open up your heart and receive this blessing from the Lord and from my heart to yours. Be blessed, O soul, to bless the Lord.
And forget not all his benefits. With spirit-infused skill, may you uncover yesterday's God moments like a treasure hunter unearthing precious jewels and finding great worth in unexpected places. That's my blessing to you. How important is gratitude? Well, I think it's just important, Daniel, so, so important that I wanted to have that blessing to our listeners that your heart would just evermore be spilling over with gratitude because gratitude is linked to emotional health.
Houston University researcher Brene Brown, who's written so much about shame and empathy, studied gratitude. And she once said that she, in all of her years of research and all the thousands of people that she has interviewed, she never knew or met anyone who had real marks of a healthy emotional character and genuine happiness in their life who did not practice gratitude. Gratitude is, according to research, the virtue or characteristic of personality that is most linked to emotional health.
More than any other characteristic, people that are grateful, their souls are healthy. I think God makes this plain to us that, you know, he says whatever is true and noble and right and pure, whatever is excellent and praiseworthy, you know, think on these things and the God of peace will be with you. Give thanks in all circumstances. All this, you see, that Paul is saying in the New Testament is because if you want to have peace and you want to have joy, then the avenue for getting there is gratitude. And the way that you become a grateful person is by forgetting not all the benefits of God. So there's a spiritual practice of uncovering, remembering God moments of everything that God has done in your life. And so that's why I want to today on this Friday, just in the middle of difficult times and a long, long pandemic to bless you, listeners, and say, I'm really blessing you that you will have a fresh new ability to see everything God's done in your life and give him gratitude for it. It'll change your life.
It'll bring you joy. And on the topic of gratitude, our friend, Dr. Gary Chapman, who has done some writing on not only the five love languages, but even the languages of gratitude throughout one's life, has partnered up at the beginning of this book, written the forward, right? I really appreciated to have someone of such stature in the Christian world who has written a book that's, well, I think it's fair to say it's changed the world. It's one of the best-selling Christian books of all time, five love languages.
And for Dr. Chapman to endorse the book and to write the forward for it is a tremendous honor and a testament to how much he thinks the power to bless is really important. Running short on time, but we have time for one more blessing from the calendar. So in what month do we find this blessing statement? So this is in the month of August, when you hang the month of August up on your wall with its beautiful image.
By that time, at least in North Carolina, you'll hit some dog days, August in there. And you can get some hot and humid days and you wonder if there's any relief in sight, something you don't think about much during the winter time, but it'll be there in August. And so to the listeners, open up your heart. And even though we're in the middle of the winter, let me speak a summertime type blessing into you. When life's air is hot, may you be refreshed at the well of God's grace.
Oh soul, be blessed to drink deeply of Christ's living spring. As we send you into the weekend, that's our special Friday broadcast here with Pastor Alan and a blessing for you, your family, your life. And we encourage you to do a couple of things here to partner up with Allen Wright Ministries.
And let's just take on the negativity in the world and counter it with blessing. You can not only support Allen Wright Ministries right now, receive this beautiful wall calendar we've been talking about. The book's getting closer and closer to its full release, but you can pre-order right now. And it just really helps in a big way to shine the light even brighter on the principle of blessing.
And when you do so at amazon.com, you will get at no extra charge, a copy of the audio book where you can listen as you drive or a lot of people listen and hear books much more quickly than they would if they were having to sit and carve out time to read a book. So that's a great way to help as we do ride strongly into the launch date of February 2nd. So come to pastorallen.org for all the details and to contact us.
And also you can call or also you can call 877-544-4860, 877-544-4860. Pastor Alan, as always, thanks for your time today and teaching us about blessing. Daniel, thank you so much. The delight of my heart to talk about how God has made us to be able to receive and give blessing. Anyone can find the power to bless. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.
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