Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.
The only way really towards healing is to have the blessing spoken into our lives that creates the security that begins to liberate us from those problems. 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 to be in the studio today in our special Friday blessing broadcast with Pastor Alan. We have this new book that's in our hands, The Power to Bless. This is something that no matter how long you've been a believer or how new you are to the faith, no matter how long you've studied blessing or maybe you've just thought it was a hashtag, there is a way to dive deeper and to continually be learning about blessing. That's what we're going to do today with Pastor Alan.
In fact, that's going to be my first question, is all about unpacking that. Even for somebody like a pastor of so many years, like Pastor Alan, how he is still learning to this day. 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's yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. As you listen to today's discussion, go deeper and we'll send you today's special offer when you contact us at PastorAlan.org or by calling 877-544-4860. We'll have more on that later in the program, but right now let's get started here in the studio with Pastor Alan Wright.
The Power to Bless, it's been out now for several weeks. You've worked on it probably diligently for a couple of years, but you say it's been a lifelong project. We'll start with why. Why did you write this book and why now? That is probably the most important question an author could ever address.
Why write that book? You know, one of the reasons I just have to say upfront, Daniel, is I needed it. I need it every day.
I need to continue to learn. I was riding down the highway the other day. My wife is in the car. We were returning home from a church function and it was evening and I was in the left-hand lane on the interstate, you know, slowly moving past some cars on the right, just going a little bit faster than the ones on the right because I figured out I was going a little bit faster, so I need to be in the left-hand lane. But I was going to move back over as soon as I passed these couple of cars. Well, all of a sudden here comes a car zooming up behind me, a sedan that pulls right up on my bumper. You know I'm talking about when they're tailgating just two feet from your back bumper.
Can't even see the headlights. They're so close to me. Like they're going to push you out of the way if they could, you know, that kind of thing I'm talking about.
Oh, it's such a pet peeve. And so I just burst on my bumper. I turned my wife.
I said, that person is right on my tail. And, you know, Daniel, it's like I'm leaving church, right? And I've just finished, I've just written this book.
It's just been released. And I can think of many things that I felt like saying to that person and none of them were blessings. It is something that, you know, even when you walked with the Lord for a long time, you realize, well, I got a long way to go. I pulled over to the right-hand lane after I got past the cars thinking, thinking thoughts that were much more akin to curse than blessing. And all of a sudden we looked and it was a young woman driving the car and she had her hazard lights on the flashers. And she is trying to get somewhere in a hurry, pulled over on the shoulder even and drove up, you know, and Anne and I both said, oh, wow, she's headed to some sort of medical emergency or she's in some kind of good reason, some good reason. And I thought, well, I'm glad I didn't actually curse her.
You know, but the point of being is I think I think I realize that this is something I want to spend the rest of my life learning about and practicing and I want others to as well. Also, Daniel, I feel like as we were speaking about last Friday, we've so trivialized the notion of blessing. You know, people think it's what you say after somebody sneezes or what you say before a meal. But in the Bible, this is a fundamental. The idea of blessing runs like a golden thread all the way through the scripture from the time that God blessed Adam and Eve and told them to be fruitful and multiply and the Hebrew patriarchs, Abraham being blessed so he could be a blessing and Isaac blessing Jacob and Jacob blessing Ephraim and Manasseh and blessing his 12 sons and Moses putting out blessing a curse in front of the people and David blessing his household, the prophets blessing over and over. And Jesus himself arrives on the scene as a baby. And this strange figure comes and blesses him.
The last thing Jesus does on the face of earth is he blesses disciple. It is it is so prevalent. It's so is so important. And I find that for a lot of my Christian life, I didn't know what it was.
And now when I get a chance to speak to people that travel, I would say the usual response is I'm not really sure what you're talking about. What do you mean by blessing? So I really wanted to write the book so that we could help people understand one of the most important principles in the Bible. But then I wrote it because I believe God has shown me over the years really over the last 30 years, how powerful blessing is, because it is an expression of the gospel.
And it is, it has a mystical expression of grace to it, not magic, but mystical, I would say, an impartation, it's almost hard to describe it. And I felt called to put this into a book so that we could understand why blessing works. And there's one other reason I wrote this book and that is because there is what is arguably the most important family blessing in the entire Bible. One of the most, maybe the most important blessing in the Bible other than maybe the high priestly blessing, the blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh. For 3700 years, Jewish dads have been blessing their sons every Friday on the Sabbath evening with the words, may God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh.
And nobody seems to know why. And I believe God's given me some revelation about that. So the explanation of the Ephraim and Manasseh blessing is not only given, but it becomes a lens through which I write the whole book.
So those reasons and more, starting with, boy, I sure need it, so I figure other people do. I think that I'm not the only one when somebody pulls up on your bumper, doesn't automatically want to start thinking of a blessing. And I think that we can be trained and I think that we can release this power and we can change the world. So Christians, you are in Christ and Christ came to bless your life.
He's utterly for you. And now you are authorized to be able to bless in a transformational way the world and the people around you. And that's why I wrote the book. Well, the book is The Power to Bless. It's available everywhere now, amazon.com, Barnes and Noble, Books a Million, places where good books are sold. And in fact, if you need some help on that, pastorallen.org will connect you to that resource, the book that you could sit with a cup of coffee and just savor.
What you're hearing today is just tip of the iceberg, but it's a teaching book. And I think of the illustration, we know it's a very simple thing to say, but it's so deep to unpack that Jesus is in everything. A kid in Sunday school has asked the question, what is brown, has a bushy tail, likes to collect nuts for the winter.
And the kid says, well, it sounds like a squirrel, but I'm going to go with Jesus. And you know, I could say it to the response of the car tailing you on the highway. And in that natural sense, you didn't want to make the blessing, but I could almost see, even if you didn't know the full unpacking of how to bless somebody, you could, you could let her by and then say, be fruitful and multiply. That's a very quick, simple, a basic version of a blessing, but there's so much more to unpack. You could always find something that is true of any human being.
And if I can't think of anything else, it's you are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God, you've been made. And that's true of every human being, whether they're acting like it or not. And so it is, it's a practice. It's something you can be trained in, but that doesn't make it any less significant or spiritually powerful.
It's both. It's spiritually powerful, but it's not reserved for the elite. It's just something for every parent, every spouse, every sibling, coworker, friend, teacher, coach, pastor.
This is the way we're to live our lives. Well, Pastor Alan, what about the person? So we've established this part. You can start right now and you can learn. And if you've been a pastor for 30, 40, 50 years, there's more to learn. If you've been a Christian since a student's a nursery baby, you've been going to church all your life and you've heard it all before, there is still more to learn.
So we're saying that you can start where you are now. And that would be helpful also for the person who did not grow up hearing blessing, feeling this sense of love, but something deeper what we are talking about here is blessing. What about the problems of the unblest life? What if you missed it?
And this is all new. Well, this is very important and appears early in the book because that is the situation for perhaps most of us, unfortunately. And none of us have received blessing perfectly.
So in some sense, we're all needing to make up for a deficit of something that we needed spoken over us at the right moment and it wasn't. That's Alan Wright, and we'll have more teaching in a moment from today's important series. Read some inspiration and practical help to bless those you love. In conjunction with the exciting release of Pastor Alan's new book, The Power to Bless, we put together some tools to get you started on the journey of speaking life and empowering the people you love. The tool kit includes an audio message of Pastor Alan's recent sermon on the mysterious blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh, the gateway to understanding the power of all blessing. Also included in the kit is a booklet with a list of scriptures that can be spoken directly as blessings. The blessing scriptures are categorized so you can easily access them for specific situations. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries this month, we'll happily send you the Power to Bless tool kit as our way of saying thanks for your partnership.
The resources are available for immediate digital download or available in CD and booklet. Partner with us and be inspired and equipped to bless someone's life today. From you give today, we will send you today's special offer. Call us at 877-544-4860.
That's 877-544-4860. Or come to our website, PastorAlan.org. Today's teaching now continues. Here once again is Alan Wright. So whether you have grown up in a very difficult home, even abusive home where curse rather than blessing was outright spoken, I'm talking about the constant berating and belittling and you're not going to amount to anything and horrible things that children have heard. And then there's the other side and that is, well, no, you weren't directly abused that way, but it just wasn't.
It was just absent. And I think that when I think about what I missed from my dad, who I just admired and loved so very much and who I know in my heart loved me, but he left home. You know, when I was fourth grade, when you're when your parents break up and you're a fourth grader, you don't know why and you don't have any category for that. So you kind of feel like there's something wrong with me. And then he's not around that much to affirm my destiny and and call it out. So you wonder, well, what's the person got to do in order to have somebody be proud of them? You see, and much of the story behind the power to bless. And I think it's it though it though it is chapter by chapter, a book that that is a nonfiction, it still builds like a story, because part of what I do in the book is tell the story of Jacob. And the reason is I so identify with Jacob.
A lot of his story feels like my story. Jacob was born the second of twins. So he was the younger. And in his culture, it was the firstborn son that got all the attention there. Everybody cherished that firstborn son. And so Jacob thought he had in his mind, unless I'm in the position of the firstborn, I won't really be blessed.
So you read the narrative. He's always conniving, always trying to trick, always deceiving. He tricks his brother at one point out of the the the birthright, it's called by essentially telling him a pot of stew. Esau's hungry and Jacob says, well, you know, I'll give you some stew, but you give me your birthright. This is his nature. He's like, I can't be blessed.
So I got it. And it comes to its crescendo when Jacob actually pretends to be Esau in this moment where it's time for the aged father Isaac to speak a blessing over his firstborn. But Isaac's blind and old and Esau pretend Jacob pretends to be Esau and essentially steals the blessing. Well, this is the way Jacob lived. He wrestled with some angel all night long. He he wrestled even in love. He he worked for seven years to get Rachel and that tricked and then worked another seven years.
It's like the story of Jacob, right? He he never feels blessed. And so he's always trying to be blessed.
And I understand some of those struggles. If you have somebody who withholds blessing from you, then there's something inside of you that thinks, if I would just do more, then I'd be blessed. And that idea that there's something that's wrong with me, maybe it's I feel not smart enough or I didn't come from the right family or I don't I'm not pretty enough, or I don't know the right people, that I have all this, then that the word for that is shame. And when when we're unaffirmed and unblessed, it gives a breeding ground for shame was shame, which says, if I were a different person or I were a better person, then I would be blessed. That shame leads us to really become afraid to be ourselves. So we become very prone to to pretend.
It was the first thing that happened to Adam and Eve was soon as they experienced shame, they began hiding from each other and hiding from God. So shame leads us into hiding. And it makes sense because if if if you think that the way to be blessed is by being somebody better than who you are, then you sure don't want to show anybody your your flaws.
You know, you you you don't want to to have any be exposed for your weaknesses. And but that's a very lonely thing. Because if people don't really know the real you, then how can you say that you have real friendship or real fellowship? So the unaffirmed, the unblessed has shame that leads to pretense, which then leads to real loneliness. And we've learned so much about the problems of of loneliness.
It's really become an epidemic, is what sociologists would call it. And it's not good. It's not good for us to be unable to be transparent with anybody. It doesn't listen. It's not Daniel an invitation to live the kind of life where you're just having to, you know, announce all your problems to large groups of people or posted online all the time.
But you need to have a few people without blessing and being affirmed of that. Jacob is always looking to find himself. It's it's this thing we would just call drift. You know, I think people know what we talk about my drift. I got is me when I think about being a kid down at Myrtle Beach growing up on our summer vacation, go get in that water and play all day out there. And you've probably done that, Daniel, when you jump in the waves and riding around and you don't realize the current is just carrying you. And more than one times as a little kid, I looked up the beach and I was lost because it could scare you two hundred yards down the beach and you don't know it. You're just in there playing in the current and didn't realize I just drifted. I think a lot of people could identify that it's like I just having trouble getting going with my life or I can't seem to get the right focus.
I can't seem to get pointed in the right direction. I can't seem to stay focused on something. And I think that's a result oftentimes of not having really received the blessing. And of course, as it shows up in Jacob's life, also, it shows up often in our lives, just relationship problems. He worked for love. He struggled in love.
And and I think that the one when we're unblessed, all of this and many other difficulties can emerge. And the only way really towards healing is to have the blessing spoken into our lives that creates the security that begins to liberate us from from those problems. And the one thing you can say about Jacob, despite all of his wrong minded pursuits of trying to earn blessing, he did know I need to be blessed.
You know, when he wrestled that angel, he said, I will not let you go until you bless me. It's like he had a yearning, you realize. And so I just like to say to our listeners, you know, I, I think probably even if you're listening to me speak right now, you may be identifying and something inside of you is saying, yes, that's what's missing in my life. If you feel like you're bumping up against an invisible ceiling and I just can't seem to get that, it may be blessing that you're missing. If you have feelings of shame that make you have a sense of angst or even a sense of worthlessness, it's blessing that you're missing. If you feel like you can't be real with other people and is making you lonely, well, it could be that blessing is what you're missing. And it's that, it's that important, but the unblessed life, um, will, will cause the soul to hurt. It really will.
And so Daniel, the good news is you don't have to stay in that condition. Need some inspiration and practical help to bless those you love in conjunction with the exciting release of Pastor Alan's new book, the power to bless. We put together some tools to get you started on the journey of speaking life and empowering the people you love. The toolkit includes an audio message of Pastor Alan's recent sermon on the mysterious blessing of Ephraim and Manasseh, the gateway to understanding the power of all blessing. Also included in the kit is a booklet with a list of scriptures that can be spoken directly as blessings.
The blessing scriptures are categorized so you can easily access them for specific situations. When you make your gift to Alan Wright Ministries this month, we'll happily send you the power to bless toolkit as our way of saying, thanks for your partnership. The resources are available for immediate digital download or available in CD and booklet partner with us and be inspired and equipped to bless someone's life today. We are happy to send this to you as our thanks from Alan Wright Ministries.
Call us at 877-544-4860. That's 877-544-4860 or come to our website, pastorallen.org. The power to bless is Pastor Alan's latest book, and we're unpacking some great principles from this.
There's story in here. There are certainly a Bible and doctorate in here, but then there's also application of how you can bless others, the two blessed part. But then there's also, in addition to all of that, there is a way to just soak it in to receive the blessing. There's a whole section on how to receive it. Some of us may feel uncomfortable when we first are on the receiving end of blessing, especially if you didn't grow up with it. But there is also the receiving part that comes in a written form and I think there's something special about hearing and obviously in a radio form like we're in now, there is something where most people are listening to the radio by themselves. So Pastor Alan, would you impart a blessing on us as we finish our time together today and maybe for the first time, maybe someone's listening who has never received a blessing in this way before and this can be made personal to them.
Absolutely. Let me begin with this, that God made you out of His own holy imagination. So take this in, the creator of the ends of the earth, as Jeremiah had said, saw your unformed being before you were made. So you began as a thought to God. You originated from God's own creativity. God is an artist who only does that which is masterful. So that means that whether you've ever felt like it or not, you are God's masterpiece.
I know you like every other person in the world, you have sin in your life, but the foundational truth of your life is, listen, beloved, you are made in the image of God. And that's what I just feel led to bless you today, is that you're a creature made in the very likeness of God Himself. God's creative and God is affirming, He's for the creation. And you, beloved, are made in His image. So you have the capacity along with God to be creative, to have original thought, to have inspired direction. And you are given the gift of language, of words that you can speak. And when you speak in accord with God's word, you have become a co-laborer with Christ Himself. So I just want to leave every listener, I want to leave you with this thought today. You are made in the image of God and therefore you are invited, invoked, given a vocation in this world to be a creative person who is blessing and recognizing what needs to be affirmed in other's lives. And here's what I want to say to you as I just end this moment of blessing for you today, is that when you do so, you are, listen to this, you are being used by God in one of the most beautiful powerful ways you'll ever be used. Don't think that the person that's up singing the solo in church or the person who has the amazing teaching gift or the one who has won a hundred souls to Christ, you know, in the last two weeks. Don't always just think, oh, that in the simplest ways you, beloved, are able to bless someone's life today. And that changes the world. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.
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