Blessing Compilation #7

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright. God's Word is so endlessly deep and rich, and the concept of blessing is so powerful, woven all the way through Scripture, that this is a fundamental that we really must embrace if we're going to live out the life that God has designed us to live.

It's that important. 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 to hear today's teaching as we sit in the studio with Pastor Alan, our special Friday blessing broadcast.

And we have his new book, Now Out the Power to Bless. Pastor Alan, it's good to be with you today. Daniel, it is so good to be with you as always. And I love these Fridays where we get to have this sort of in-depth conversation.

What a joy. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, I want to make sure you know how to get our special resource right now. It can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. As you listen to today's message, go deeper, and we'll send you today's special offer.

In fact, today is the last day to get this flip style devotional calendar for your desk. Contact us at pastoralan.org. That's pastoralan.org, or call 877-544-4860.

And as always, we thank you for your continued support. More on that later in the program. But right now, let's get started with today's discussion, The Power to Bless with Pastor Alan Wright. Pastor Alan, you and I have actually just been reminiscing through the pages of this book. We've sat with it for a while, and I'm still personally still excited about it and how this, I think, as you said not long ago, you can learn very quickly, but you will spend the rest of your life peeling back layers and layers and layers of many parts of the Bible, of the gospel, but certainly The Power to Bless. One of the things that I love about The Power to Bless, about the book, and about the opportunity, Daniel, here with our listening audience, as well as going and speaking to groups of people, is that you can honestly say, when it comes to The Power to Bless, if this is totally new to you, I've got good news for you.

You can start today. And if you are well familiar with this and have been practicing blessing, I've got good news. There is so much more to learn.

You can spend the rest of your life. I really thought it was a good image talking to my son Bennett. He's a grown and married lawyer. And I said, Bennett said, dad, I like the book. I said, now, son, tell me the truth. I said, you really like it? I said, no, daddy, dad, it's a good book.

And I said, well, that's great to hear. He said, you know, he said, the thing about blessing is it's like the game of chess. He said, you know, you can learn to play chess in 10 to 15 minutes. And, and yet you could spend the rest of your life learning how to play chess. And it's true. You know, you can learn what the pawn does, what the rook does in the night, but you can spend the rest of your life nuances. So it is with blessing. And really this is the way it is with life with God. But Daniel, one of the things we want to just reiterate, um, anybody that is just beginning to learn about blessing is that this is not just something you can grow in, but it really is something that you can begin practicing right now. And that's one of the things that do in the book is hopefully just lay out some very simple steps to get you going. I always like things like that. You know, I don't care what it is.

If it's a, if it's a new computer app, or if it's a game or I want to be able to, I don't want to spend all day learning the instructions and then start playing. Just let me start. Right.

Right. You know, I always felt like when I was teaching the kids something growing up, um, you know, if you want to learn to play the piano, don't make them play scales for a whole year. Let them start playing a song.

Let me do one song, you know? And I think it's that way with blessing. So we, we, we, the book can get you up and running, so to speak and the power of bless. And yet Daniel is you and I discussed so often God's word is so endlessly deep and rich. And the concept of blessing is so, uh, uh, so powerful woven all the way through scripture that this is a fundamental that we really must embrace if we're going to live out the life that God has designed us to live.

It's that important. So confession time. I grew up being taught manners. Uh, I think I'm a kind person. I'm good at being thankful. I'm good at showing my gratitude to people, but so just to show you where the power to bless has been challenging me lately, because I could default to maybe saying something about you, but I would always start it with, thank you for doing this or being this way. And so I've been challenged to, uh, not be ungrateful, but in addition to the thankful sentence statement, started with, I see this in you, or you are this, or I feel this when I'm around you. And I maybe doesn't come as natural to me. So that's been a challenge. And I think of your chess illustration when, uh, when I think of that in me, it's good what I was doing before, but now I've gone a little bit deeper.

Exactly. So, uh, simply, uh, to bless is in a, in a way that we have been made in the image of God, we have been given a collaborative. I like that word collaborate with God co-labor is what Paul said in first Corinthians. We co-labor we, we are, we are working together with, uh, synergistically the work of the Holy spirit.

So God is the originator of all good gifts. We then work in conjunction to, to speak out that blessing that originates with him and what it is simply, and you look in the scripture is simply this. It is the calling forth, speaking out with words, a positive future that is attached to and help shape an identity and how that identity and the virtues that help form that identity can then release someone into a beautiful destiny. So it can be as simple as affirming to someone that you have noticed that they are a joyful person. They have joy and that it, it, it encourages other people to see their joy and that you see that they're joyful person. And blessing always then carries that to something that is significant about that. So if you, if you see someone has a lot of joy and say, you're a joyful person, when you're helping to shape their identity, they see themselves, this is who I am. But then if you go on to say, and joy is a fruit of the Holy spirit. So wherever there's joy, there is an attraction to the very presence of God. Well, now you've assigned a purpose and all that's biblical, right?

You know, you could say that about a person having met them just for a few moments. Well, that's how simple blessing is. So as a positive vision, spoken in faith, in agreement with God's word that shapes identity and releases destiny. And it's, it's a fundamental in the scripture that this type of, of, of proclamation is very much part of the expression of what it means to be in the image of God. Cause this is what God does with us before we are living out manifesting all of the, of the design that he's made for us.

He nonetheless is speaking it over us. So the blessing goes first. We're talking with Pastor Alan in the studio today, and this is our special Friday blessing focus. The book is the power to bless. That's now out. And I encourage you to get it, get yourself a copy of this, by the way, you can get it wherever good books are sold places like Amazon, Barnes and Noble books, a million online, pastorallen.org. We can connect you to the right places to get that. And it's available not only hardback, but also audio book available and for your Kindle or your e-reader and your tablet.

It's a great, great resource out. And by the way, when you talk to an author, my friend always says words matter. So I can imagine every word, even in the title of the book was carefully chosen the power to bless. You know, when you just pick up a book or you see it in a bookstore, you see the title and you don't give it much thought you might say, oh, I like that title, or you may find it not that handy of a title, but you don't realize the number of hours that authors and publishers put into the selection of a title. Interesting. Some listeners may be interested to know this, that the publisher in traditional publishing is the one who has the right to finally name the book.

And yet the author's input is very important. And in this case, um, it really, uh, I was so glad that I had a full agreement and the publisher agreed for this title, the power to bless. We went through a lot of, uh, probably 200 possible titles and there for a while, Daniel, we had a working title for this book. Uh, we were, we were calling it beyond hashtag blessed and you know, the hashtag blessed thing is it became almost an excuse to brag.

Right. Uh, so thankful that I was voted prom queen, hashtag blessed, uh, you know, or it was trivial, uh, had a wonderful meal, uh, tonight, uh, was able to have a, you know, cake for dessert, hashtag blessed, you know, as if this is defining, you know, found some good shoes on sale, hashtag blessed, got a good parking place, hashtag blessed. Well, not that these things aren't blessings, but that there's something deeper than that, but the book is about more than the move from the trivial to the not trivial. It's about a profound power. So when Baker books came back originally, they said, well, let's call it the power of blessing. And I suggested, how about we call it the power to bless, because to say the power of blessing is to say, there's a tremendous power that needs to be explored. But when you say the power to bless, now you're talking about somebody has that power. You're talking about you and me, the power to bless, to be an agent of God, to be used of God. And so, uh, that, that idea that, you know, Daniel, this is not, um, not only is it not the trivial hashtag blessed kind of thing, and it's not only is it not the thing you say before you eat a meal or what you say after someone sneezes, but when you look in the scripture, I think in an endlessly deep and rich way, this is like a mystical expression of, of grace that is being released through words and by the power of the Holy Spirit that is shaping the narrative of the Bible and generation upon generation.

And this, this, the difference between curse, which Jesus came to take on our behalf and the blessing of God. And you begin to realize this is something that is profoundly powerful. And I just came to believe that other than the direct presence of God himself and maybe the power of prayer, I think that blessing is the most powerful transformational tool that God has has given us. So the power to bless is to say, and I hope our listeners really take this to heart, say that you in Christ are a priest.

You have been entrusted. You have been authorized with the capacity to join with God in shaping and making and blessing this world. And there are people around you that won't be the same because you're going to bless them. So that's a very powerful thing to consider. Well, and just the two words to bless, and I have said this so many times Pastor Alan may get tired of me saying it, but I know why you do it or don't do it in this case.

It's very intentional. For most of your ministry, you steer clear of providing how-to's, five steps to, or five ways of doing this because we humans, or maybe even more so we Americans, are so good at taking something, putting it, forming it into a strategy, making a formula out of it, and then saying, okay, this is how the spiritual life is supposed to be. You do A, B, and C. But with blessing, you recognize there is a bit of a teaching moment here, and there is a how-to principle behind the blessing. And we need that because, as you just mentioned, so much of our lives we've gone without truly understanding.

Well, it's so interesting to me, as I've mentioned before, that this is fundamental. I mean, you wouldn't be able to have, if you were to sit down and talk to someone in ancient Israel and ask them, what do you mean about blessing? They'd look at you funny, like, what do you mean, what do I mean by blessing?

It'd be like us going into a gathering and say, today I will talk about prayer, and someone raised their hand and say, what do you mean by prayer? Well, that's the way blessing is. I mean, nobody was coming up to Jesus saying, what is blessing?

They just brought their children for him to bless. Everybody understood what blessing is, and yet we've trivialized it. We don't understand it. And so it's a fundamental. And with that, I think that there's some very, very simple steps that we can take.

And so that's why we included in the book, really at the end, a very practical worksheet that anyone could take. And it's sort of a fill in the blank, but it's for you under the inspiration of God and you with your own wisdom and perceiving people to be able to fill that in. But when you, Daniel, when you can recognize in someone a virtue that maybe they don't see as clearly as you do, and you call that out, that's how all blessing begins. We don't create someone's worth. We just recognize their worth and we call it forth.

We don't make their virtue, but we identify virtue and we affirm that virtue. And so you bless it. I often think it's almost like putting a seed in the ground that then you get some water and some fertilizer on it and some sunshine on it, and it's going to germinate and it's going to grow and become what it is.

But what you're doing is you're blessing the seed that's there. And I like to think of us the way that Michelangelo was reported to have felt about his sculptures that he said when he did his great sculptures like Moses or the famous David, the majestic David sculpture, so amazing. But he said he always believed that the sculpture, the figure, the masterpiece was in the stone clamoring to be set free.

So that then what the artist is really doing is just chiseling away, chiseling away and letting it emerge. Well, I think of people that way. I think they're people that God gives us, that they're part of our pathway and in our sphere. And we're Michelangelo and we're seeing who they're designed to be, who they're destined to be. And our blessing is kind of an artistry of calling it forth. So that's why you have to go, you have to let your blessing go first.

It has to come before someone has manifested. And that's just almost exactly opposite of the way of culture. Culture tends to dangle blessing like a carrot and say, become something better and then I'll bless you.

And I think probably a lot of our listeners, that's probably more what they've experienced or certainly my generation, that's kind of what we grew up with, that kind of idea that parents like, don't tell them to say they're affirming, it might go to their head and they'll quit trying. Well, the Bible has a picture that's just exactly the opposite of that. And by the way, that began in Genesis, right?

Right in the very beginning. And isn't it interesting how much there is in Genesis chapter one? In the beginning, God created the heavens and earth. So the very first thing that we learn about God must be the most important thing you could learn about God, and that is He creates.

Now, let's be very clear about this. There is a Hebrew verb, bara, that means create. And God is the only one who's ever used and is the subject of bara. No one else can bara, no one else can create something out of nothing. So to be truly creative is to say that where there's nothing, you create something. And none of us are creative in that sense.

We can't call something out of nothing. But just a thought there that God is creative, that's who He is. And then the next thing you realize is He creates the first day and He says it's good. He affirms what He created. And we come to the end of Genesis and He creates man and woman in His own image, and then He blessed them and told them to be fruitful and multiply and have dominion in the earth. So what does God do? God creates and He blesses. He makes and He affirms. He creates and He blesses.

He creates and He blesses. So I think you see right there in Genesis chapter one, Daniel, you see this is who God is. And what's the first thing that we learn about human beings? The first thing we learn is that we are made in the image of God. That's what's repeated to us in Genesis one, made in the image of God, made in His own image, made in His likeness. So we're not God, but we are more like God than probably we dare even believe. We're made in His image. And if we see God as one who creates and blesses, who makes and affirms, you can understand our vocation in this world, our calling, our design, who we are, is we are made to help shape, that is to help form in creative ways the world around us and to bless and affirm it.

So I look at it this way, when you exercise your imagination in a holy way by seeing what someone can be through authentic discernment and then you begin to speak it out, you're very much like Michelangelo. You're seeing out of the stone the masterpiece that can be there. And our words are like the chisel that is helping bring it to shape. And I think the soul is clamoring to be free and to be all that God made the soul to be. So that's really what we're doing and that's a very beautiful and powerful thing to think that when you bless, you're doing one of the most God-like things that you can do.

We're made in the image of God. He makes and blesses and so do we. Allen Wright, today's good news message, the power to bless on our special Friday in-studio broadcast. Pastor Alan is back with us here in just a moment sharing his parting good news thought for the day.

Stick with us. Wouldn't it be nice to set your mind on God's blessing instead of the curses of the world? This month's special offer from Allen Wright Ministries will help coinciding with the release of Pastor Alan's new book, The Power to Bless. We have created a flip style devotional for your desk or kitchen counter. The beautiful spiral bound devotional offers 28 days of inspiration utilizing some of the most moving excerpts from the new book. Use it day by day for four weeks so you'll keep the promises and assurance of God's blessing right in front of you. As Paul wrote to the Philippians, whatever is true, noble, right and pure, think on these things. So make your gift to Allen Wright Ministries today and we'll send you the inspirational flip style devotional as our thank you for your partnership.

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That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAllen.org. With Pastor Alan today in the studio, it is our special Friday blessing broadcast. Pastor Alan's latest book is The Power to Bless. It's available now wherever good books are sold, including places like Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble Books, a million at PastorAllen.org.

We'll connect you there. And that's a great resource, not only to teach you about blessing, teach you how to bless, but then it kind of walks you through some practical step by steps on applying that and getting started. And I want to pick back up with what you just mentioned a few moments ago, that we are created in the image of God. And of course, we have to say, well, we're not created to be a God, but we are like God.

And you want to talk about the differences there? Well, let me go back to this, as we were saying earlier, God is the creator of the NZ there. So only God can create out of nothing.

But we're made in His image. So I'm not a creator in the sense that God's a creator, but I'm creative. You're creative. And you are a very creative person, right? So, and this is not just for the artists of the world. An author takes words that already exist and puts them together in a way that has never been before, right? So that's part of what I love about that. Words to me are paint on the palette.

That's a beautiful thing. He made us creative. For somebody else, your creativity might be expressed in that you love to cook and you make creations in the kitchen.

Someone else might like to have a woodworking shop. Someone else, your creativity is in the way you work in the yard and the things that you see growing and you know, on and on the list goes. So my point is just being is that God made us to be creative people. But the most beautiful creative thing that we do is we help people become what they can be. So our words, therefore, are cooperating with God's word.

So He's the creator, but we're creative. And all blessing originates with God. Like we learn from James, every good and perfect gift comes down from above.

So we didn't manufacture the good gifts. We're not the ones that even generated love, much less light in the world, right? But we take these good gifts and we cooperate with them and help release them. So that's really what we're doing when we're blessing. We're taking the very goodness of God that originates with Him and is from God alone. But then we're being used as agents of releasing that blessing everywhere we possibly can. God creates, God gives good gifts. We in His image are creative people who are blessing those good gifts to be released in people's lives. Today's Good News message is a listener-supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.