Daily Blessing Compilation #18

Pastor, author, and Bible teacher, Alan Wright.

I know there's got to be a parent right now going, oh no, I've cursed my kids. Well, the good news is it's not too late to start speaking blessing. That's Pastor Alan Wright. Welcome to another message of good news that will help you see your life in a whole new light. Hi, I'm Daniel Britt, excited for you to hear the teaching today as we are in the studio.

It's our special blessing broadcast as we dive deeper into this book, The Power to Bless. And I'm sitting with the author of that book, Pastor Alan Wright, and this has been a great journey through it. And as I said before, it's very practical.

It's very easy to wrap your mind around. And I think you have these epiphany moments where you're like, oh wow, this is something I can go right out. Even if you're in the middle of chapter three or chapter four, you can just go out and start doing this. But as you get towards the end of the book, it gets even more practical.

And that's where we're at right now. Pastor Alan, it's good to be with you and it's good to explore together examples and ways that we can encourage each other to bless. Well, we want this great, mysterious, powerful principle of blessing that we see from antiquity. We see it all throughout the page of the Old Testament.

We see it in the page of the New Testament. This blessing that is in many ways an endlessly deep type of impartation that it seemed like they understood in biblical times and seems like we don't understand or practice very much. And so we want to embrace it in all of its weighty glory and all of its depth.

And yet, and this is a big part of the reason I wrote the book, this is for everybody. I think it's as much of a fundamental of the Christian life as is prayer or fellowship or anything else that we call dear to our daily life, something God wants to work into our daily speech. And as we've said many times, other than prayer and the direct presence of God, I think that blessing is the most powerful force of change that we have available to us in the world. We're so prone to, you know, get frustrated when someone around us is not growing or being all that we hope that they would be, that we can resort to all kinds of ways to try to get them to change. And it's not wrong to want somebody to change.

It's just wrong if we don't do it God's way. So that's what we're talking about. And today I'm excited to be with you in the studio because I love these Fridays when we get a really in-depth chance to talk in practical ways about how we can work this out in our lives. And we're going to talk about some specific examples of what blessing sounds like. And we're going to finish out by making sure that you could get started today by learning how to bless.

But as you listen to our discussion today, I encourage you to go deeper as we send you today's special offer. You can contact us at pastorallen.org or call 877-544-4860, 877-544-4860. And as we're talking about the power to bless, don't miss the daily blessing that comes to your email inbox.

You can find it on social media. You can subscribe to a podcast version of that. It's a very simple, short daily blessing from Pastor Alan into your life.

And you can get that also at pastorallen.org. We'll tell you more about this later in the program. But as we get started with today's discussion of the power to bless, let's go back to our last discussion a bit and recap the quadrant, the chart, the visual aid.

And how will we do that on radio? We'll paint a picture for you. Well, it's such a simple visual that, of course, it's in the book, but we would love to be able to send you the book.

But we also know that if for some reason you just need to get just the diagram, just write us, we'll send it to you. But Daniel, if we could just imagine a simple diagram with lines, two kind of axes that intersect one another, leaving us with four quadrants. And if you just envision that those lines that are intersecting one another leave us with four quadrants blessing both the opposite side curse and what I call moralism opposite of it is a moralism. The way you get there is just by envisioning truth as a continuum. So let's draw in our minds a line that's horizontal going straight across. If you had a piece of paper, just drawing it left to right and to the left, the further you go, less truth to the right, more truth.

But intersect that and you do this in your mind's eye. The line of grace as it goes up, this is a vertical line, grace going up and more and more grace as you go up and less and less as you go down. So it leaves you with these grace and truth type of quadrants. And what we send is that that blessing is a kind of speech that is like Jesus who was full of grace and full of truth. He wasn't 50% grace and 50% truth.

That's our problem. We tend to be more of one or the other, but he was 100% grace, 100% truth. And that's the way God speaks.

He speaks truth and love. So we want to develop an understanding of the way we're speaking and the way we're hearing people speak to us that lets us stay in touch with is this grace and truth or is this just grace and no truth or is this just truth and no grace or is it no grace and truth whatsoever? And that's how you can recognize the kind of statement that's being made.

And I think it's a worthy activity to spend some time in this. And that's why I devoted a chapter to this in the book to just take some examples and think about kinds of statements in every sort of situation. Because we're hearing these kinds of things and we're speaking these kinds of words on a regular basis. And we're wise if we pause, think about it and basically learn to train ourselves to speak out blessing. Again, blessing is grace and truth. Curse is no grace or truth. Moralism is like legalism. It's just like, well, it's true, but it doesn't empower you. There's no grace in it. And amoralism, the spirit of the age is just essentially saying it doesn't matter what you do because there's no real truth, no ultimate truth.

We just want to be loving to one another. So I think, Daniel, it's worth talking about some of those scenarios. Absolutely. And the power to bless. And by the way, you can learn to bless anyone.

And that's our theme for today. That quadrant, I think you would agree, it's a help, it's a tool, it's an aid. Because sometimes, especially with kids, if you're raising kids, sometimes there's a split second moment where you have a teaching moment, a guiding moment, a blessing moment, all wrapped up in one. And you may not always have time to run and grab your reference books and go flip through. But having that quadrant in your mind's eye is something you can quickly kind of say, OK, am I at least in that right, correct quadrant? Exactly, exactly. You may not say the perfect words, but you can have the right intent and say, OK, whatever, however I respond in this situation, I want it to be both grace and truth because I want to bless. Right.

Because the other forms of speech are ultimately destructive. Yeah. And so, well, let's let's talk about, Daniel, maybe a few of these scenarios. Here's one that's in the book, parent of an underachieving high school student.

Let's imagine that scenario. Let's say you've got a high schooler who is capable of making A's and B's, but has brought home a report card full of C's because he just has not been studying diligently. How do you motivate him? So there are a lot of parents right now. You've got students.

You're like, OK, how do I motivate my child to study harder and apply him or herself? Well, let's keep in mind these four quadrants. Let's keep in mind grace and truth is where we want to go. But let's talk about what what what would it sound like to speak truth that doesn't have grace?

And that's what I call moralism. I think it'd be something like this, Daniel. I think it'd be you better bring up your grades or else you won't get into a good college and get a good job one day.

It might add something like you don't see your brother coming home with C's, do you? Right. Well, so that kind of statement, you know, there's something in us, especially when we're frustrated. We say, well, I'm just going to give the truth. Right. And there's nothing that's actually in that statement that's not true. Yeah.

Yeah. If you don't bring up your grades, you probably are not going to get in a good college and you don't get a good college education. That could definitely impact the kind of work that you're able to get. And it might be that there's somebody else around you. Maybe it's your own family who's not who's performing much better than you are. All that might be true.

Sure. But what does that do to it to a student's soul? Does it actually help them? It just makes them feel ashamed. Makes them feel like I'm not measuring up. And so maybe out of fear of not measuring up, they might try harder for a while. But you know, that does into a into a child's soul is it plants the idea of conditional acceptance. And that produces a lot of anxiety. We don't want we don't want our kids becoming anxious when we get anxious.

We don't do well. Right. There's a better motivation.

Well, let's say up at the other spectrum from moralism, what I call a moralism, no morality, no truth, but lots of grace. It might be that the parent would say, well, don't worry about your report card. Grades aren't that important. What matters is you follow your heart. Well, and a well-meaning parent who doesn't want a child to become real anxious and overemphasize grades and all could say something like that. But then it's just not true. Grades aren't the most important thing, but and the report card is not the ultimate thing, but it's not to say that the way that you perform in school is not important. It is important.

Yeah, it's good to follow your heart, but we also have to learn some discipline in life. So that's just a statement of grace, but no truth. That's that's counterproductive. Also, curse in this situation is no grace, no truth. And it really this is where the the the kind of sounds of ultimate frustration can come out. Well, you never study.

You become lazy. See, there's a label. It's ruining your academic transcript. That's doom.

No good college is going to accept you. You're saying that's what curse ends up doing. And I know there's got to be a parent right now going, oh, no, of course, my kids. Well, the good news is it's not too late to start speaking blessing.

Yeah. And blessing is grace and truth here. Here's a good blessing statement.

I would say to this scenario of a student who's underachieving because of lack of of diligent study and maybe something like this. You say to your your teenager, I care about you far more than I do about your grades, your mind. I love you no matter what. See, this is grace talking. And I also know that God has given you a good mind. And I believe that you're going to make a wonderful impact on the world using that good brain of yours.

Now we're speaking a truthful identity. And we're not going to obsess over this report card. It's in the past. But I know you can develop some better study habits. So I'm going to help you make a plan.

So what's happening there? An affirmation of a God given destiny, an affirmation of an identity. See, if if you want a child to study more, you want them to know they have a good brain. So it's worth using it.

Right. And you want them to know that God's going to use them for good purposes because he gave them that brain. And as it gets developed, God's going to use it.

You want to relate both your identity in Christ to your purpose and hope in this world. And that's what that's what you do when you have grace, grace and truth. And, you know, those aren't the exact words, of course, but that's the way that's the way it is. Maybe, Daniel, we got time for another example or two. Yeah, absolutely.

And these are great, too. You know, maybe not fitting your scenario at home perfectly right now or in your own life. But I think there's a way that you can you can bring back these examples and say, OK, there's enough there to give me some fuel to bless others or even bless yourself. Exactly.

All right. Let's say you're trying to deal with a friend is a friend of a guilt ridden recent divorcee. OK, this is a scenario. A Christian friend has been through a painful divorce, left her discouraged, wracked with guilt over the failed marriage. It scarred her children.

How are you going to help her heal? OK, so it could be a number of things. But let's just take this example. Let's talk about how do you bless somebody in that in that circumstance? Well, moralism, that's truth without grace, might say something like this.

The Bible says, if we confess our sins, God will forgive us. I encourage you to make sure you've repented of your part in the marital breakdown and consider this as an opportunity to improve your own character. Well, you know, that's that's a true statement.

Any kind of marital breakup. There's always two sides to the story. And there's always a need for us to I like what what a friend of mine used to say, to own 100 percent of whatever percent of the problem we were.

You might only been five percent of the problem, but own 100 percent of your five percent. So that is true. But then, you know, there's no grace in that statement. If you interact with somebody and all you do is tell them what they ought to do and how they ought to be better and how they ought to confess, well, you just leave them feeling like, yeah, that's true. I've had my sins been part of this and yeah, I need to improve my own character. But there's nothing that leaves them with real encouragement there. That's that's moralism.

Well, the opposite spectrum, that a moralism is where there's grace, but no truth. Congratulations on your newfound freedom. Yeah. Enjoy your new life. Whatever you do, don't beat yourself up over it. Don't worry about the children.

Kids are resilient. You know, sometimes marriage just doesn't work out. Don't worry about it.

You know, there are greeting cards. Congratulations on your divorce. You know, that just paint this brush of of grace over it as if as if there's no real pain and there's no real problem. And no, that that's not true. Kids are hurt by divorce.

Divorce hurts both people involved. There's always been human sin involved. There's always been.

There's difficulties there. That's just saying, like Jeremiah prophesied, you say peace, peace where there's no peace. And we hear so much of this in the spirit of the age. We don't want to take a look at any of our responsibilities or our sin involved in anything. So that might be a very seemingly loving way to interact with a friend of a recent divorce, but it's not going to really help them because they they they're sitting there trying to deal with their own guilt over it.

Right. Well, there's an even worse way, of course, to speak, and that's curse. And that's where, you know, there's no grace or truth in this at all. Curse might say, well, welcome to the divorce club. It's a stigma you have to get used to wearing.

You'll probably want to watch for emotional warning signs in your children because kids from broken homes always seem to struggle. Well, no, no, no. Just because you've gone through this doesn't mean you wear a stigma the rest of life.

No, it doesn't mean your kids are going to be a problem. No. All that's a bunch of lies. So that's that's not truth. And there's no grace there. There's no hope. There's no love in that.

You know, just join the club and of us failures. No, that's curse. So what would blessing say in that scenario, Daniel?

I think something like this. We would say to a friend who's been guilt ridden over divorce, who might say to her, there's no sin too big for God to forgive. I'm not necessarily implying that the divorce was your fault or. But he loves to make beauty from ashes, though this divorce wasn't God's plan or yours. See, see what I'm saying here? I'm not being glib about something that the Bible says God hates divorce. Let's don't be glib about it. Right.

Yeah. But then blessing says, though this might not have been God's plan, I'm convinced he can use these painful life events for your good, for your children's good and for his own and for his own glory. Now you're speaking blessing to someone. You're saying that these events and and even the sin in your life, it's not what defines you. God defines you. You're saying that though you are in heartbreak now, God is redemptive.

And I can envision I can see a positive future for you. I think that's so much of what blessing does. Daniel, it envisions what maybe the person you're blessing can not yet envision. Grace and truth.

That's Pastor Alan Wright. And the book is The Power to Bless. And as we are learning to craft a blessing and obviously life is going to bring about many different moments of speaking the blessing. And I think being ready is what this book gets you. It prepares you for being ready for those moments. So as we learn to craft blessing, I find it very helpful to hear examples. And you have plenty of these in the book.

We have time for one more. How about we'll have one here for the husbands amongst us. But whether you're whether you're male or female, married or single, and see if you can envision this scenario, a husband who wishes his wife didn't nag so much. OK, so envision you've been married to the same woman for 20 years. You've grown weary of the nagging about how unavailable you are.

OK, this is something I hear a lot, right? My husband's not emotionally available to me. He's not, you know, and of course, there's something that's important, you know, and the wife, the reason she's nagging about it is because she's wanting something she doesn't have. Well, how could you help an overly critical wife become more gracious if you were that husband?

Moralism. That's truth. No grace might say you need to respect me like the Bible says. You say I don't do enough around the house and I don't talk to you enough. Well, maybe if you didn't nag so much, I'd feel like being around you more. Well, OK, there's a lot of truth in that, right?

A whole lot of truth in that. But is that going to help? That is not husbands.

That's not going to help. Amoralism is where you've got lots of grace, but no truth. All right. It might say the husband might say, I know you feel I'm not available enough and you have a right to your opinions. I'm not perfect and I never will be. I try to accept you the way you are.

I hope you'll just accept me as I am. Well, that's very gracious and it's affirming grace and acceptance, but it's not going to work because it's not true. The truth is that if your husband and wife, the sharing of one another's lives is vitally important.

Yeah, it's important that we accept in love one another, but it's not true to say that it's just fine that we're just supposed to be just fine with how other people are. No, that's it's nothing wrong with wanting somebody to grow and become more like more godly and and and and there's nothing wrong with wanting your marriage to become better. Curse is where there's no grace or truth. And Daniel, I think the husband who's speaking curse might say something to his nagging wife like you're a constant nag.

See, it puts a label there and it's driving me nuts. No husband wants to be around a nagging wife. OK, so there's a threat. That's a doomed statement. Your nonstop criticism has worn me out, pushed me away, and I don't see any hope for our marriage. Well, that's curse. There's no grace there.

There's no truth there. So what would you say? What if you were a husband and you were wanting to try to help your wife? You're trying to build your marriage. What would blessing have to say in this?

Maybe it'd be something like this. I hear what you're saying and I'd like to be more helpful and available to you. But when you speak critically to me, it doesn't help.

You aren't a critical person by nature. You've encouraged me so many times over the years. You can build me up better than anyone else because you're the most important person in the world to me. God can give you grace to communicate with me in a more positive manner and he can give me more grace to become a better husband. You know, just a statement like that, Daniel, can you imagine how empowering that is?

Yeah. We've been learning about the difference between blessing and curse and moralism and amoralism and blessing is a statement of grace and truth. And Daniel, anyone can learn to bless. In a world full of curse, now more than ever, we need to discover the power to bless.

Maybe you feel stuck in life, finding it hard to break through an invisible ceiling, or maybe there's someone you love that needs spirit and power and encouragement. If so, contact us today so we can send you Alan Wright's most recent book, The Power to Bless. And now for a limited time, when you get your copy of the book, we want to send you four additional related resources. You'll receive Pastor Alan's brand new video course, The Power to Bless and its study guide, perfect for small groups and personal growth. Also, we'll send you Pastor Alan's five-week video masterclass series called Speak Life, along with a helpful study guide. The Speak Life masterclass makes the principles of blessing practical as Pastor Alan teaches step by step how anyone can learn to bless their children, spouse, friend, or stranger. The masterclass includes material not found in the book, answering questions like how to bless an unbeliever and how to speak blessing to someone walking through a valley of adversity. Learn more at pastoralan.org.

That's pastoralan.org or call 877-544-4860. Pastor Alan in the studio today and The Power to Bless is the book he's written. We've been diving deeper into this discussion of The Power to Bless and in our special blessing broadcast as it comes to a close here.

What is our parting good news thought that you would like everyone to leave with today? Think of something, think of a person you love and think of something, a virtue, a quality that you see maybe more vividly than they do, something that you could see of a positive future and an identity of who they are that maybe they don't they don't see it as well. And so think of that, okay, and then when you see it, attach a sense of identity to it. So you think of someone who has a particular gift, you might emphasize that to them and say that I see that you're a patient person. But then as you identify identity with it because you're a patient person, this means, and attach some positive future to it, this means that you can be very helpful in tense situations. This is how simple it is.

So it's really a very simple process. Think about someone you love, pray for them as you think about it and then think of a virtue that you see in them, then attach an identity statement to it and then to that identity attach a positive possibility and speak it out over their life. And when you do that, you have blessed their life. You think of grace and truth as coming together.

How do I show love and how do I affirm truth about this person's life? The book tells a whole lot more, Daniel, about how you can build a biblical picture over someone's life. It gives step-by-step instructions.

There's even a worksheet there. But here's the good news thought for the day. Even though you can learn about blessing endlessly, because it's endlessly deep, you can start by blessing someone today. Speak grace and truth just the way God speaks to us and you can empower their life for good. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.