Daily Blessing Compilation #15

Alan Wright, pastor, Bible teacher, and author of his latest book, The Power to Bless. You speak blessing because you have faith for someone else to be able to flourish. And when you do so, you have a holy imagination for what their life can be. And that positive vision comes out. And faith is just powerful. Without faith, the Bible says it's impossible to please God.

With faith, mountains can move. 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 be with us today in the studio. It's our special blessing broadcast as we dive deeper into the book, The Power to Bless.

And how often do you get to sit with the author and really just pick their brain, hear a little bit more of what went in, not just creating the book, but as Pastor Alan has told us, many, many years of study and life. And we're going to unpack those great truths today. If you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire broadcast, 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. And we so appreciate your support to keep this message going forward.

So as you listen to our discussion today, go deeper as we send you today's special offer. Contact us at Pastor Alan.org. That's Pastor Alan.org. Or when you call 877-544-4860, we'll connect you right up.

877-544-4860. More on this later in the program. But right now, let's get started with our discussion with Pastor Alan here in the studio. It's good to be with you, Pastor Alan. Daniel, it's just I really love these things in the studio when we get a chance to do this, to have a casual, inspiring conversation about the power of this mystical impartation we call blessing. It is a positive vision. It's spoken in faith and accord with God's word.

And what a joy it was to put all this into print. Really a life message for me, something that has been, oh, the way we've raised our kids, how we've built our marriage, how we've built our church. And what I think is maybe the single most powerful force of change in the world other than the presence of God and prayer itself. I think this is the power blessing. And, you know, I get to travel around, I get to talk to people on the radio, on TV, and find that most people have a lot of questions about this. Like, what is this?

It's just been neglected. And so it's fun on these Fridays to, I don't know, maybe take one concept out of the book, talk about it in more depth, and hopefully really give our listeners some deep insight. And I hope to all the listeners, it will certainly whet your appetite that you'll want to run out and get the book.

Contact us or your bookstore and just get in and dive into this. I promise you that this is the kind of thing that will change the way you're interacting with people. And we're hearing stories from all over the nation such that. So, Daniel, it's just fun to be with you. Thank you for time in the studio again about the power to bless. You know, in the Christian faith, I think there are a lot of words that are used very frequently. And if you want to even put in the categories of concrete and abstract. So things like grace, things like blessing. We hear these a lot, but maybe that feels a little more abstract and we want them to be more concrete. I will borrow the title of another book that is pretty brilliant. I think you would agree.

Dudley Hall. Grace works. Yes. Well, blessing works. And we're going to twist that around.

How does it work? And I think this chapter in our discussion today is going to talk more about that. Well, I think it's important, at least it is important to me that I like to know how things work.

Yeah. I mean, you know, not that I have to know how electricity works. I don't. I don't. I don't really know exactly how even my lawnmower works, maybe.

But but I'm curious about things. How do they work? Why does it work? And for me, also, I wanted this book, Daniel, to be very practical. So it's it is I would consider it some of the most profound theology. I know some of the most inspirational and encouraging stories I ever have been able to tell. But it also is foundationally practical. And in order for something to to be practical to me, that means we've got to become convinced that it really works.

And so it's worth asking the question, why does blessing work? And so I thought we'd talk about that for our content today. And, you know, I think, Daniel, in a lot of ways, I was trying to figure out what am I? I write books. I preach.

We have radio program. I pastor people. Well, what is it really that I do? And maybe one way to see it is that, you know, I think what I am is I'm sort of just a color commentator for Jesus. You know, like it's funny, you know, the color commentators for sports fans know this.

There may be some 350 pound football players sweating out there on the turf. And there's a TV guy, a color commentator sitting in an air conditioned box, you know, and he's wearing headphones and he's drawing yellow telestrator lines on the screen. And he's drawn a line up and said, now watch in slow motion here. Here's how the right tackle blocks the blitzing linebacker. And here's watch this. This is where the huge hole in the line that the tailback runs through here. And you can see that this is what happened as they moved around the end and this great block. In other words, you're a sports fan. You sit there and you go, oh, wow, yeah, I'm glad you put that into slow motion because I didn't notice all of that.

So I like hearing, you know, when I'm watching sports, I like hearing that kind of commentary because it helps me to appreciate, you know, what the athletes are doing. And so in a real sense, we're going to go into slow motion today and kind of put the telestrator lines up there, so to speak, and say, here's what's happening when you bless and when you bless. Let's just remember it. You're speaking a vision that's rooted in faith that is consistent with God's word, helps someone understand their identity and releases them towards a positive destiny.

That's what's happening. And I think, Daniel, as I have contemplated this for decades and searched the scriptures. And so I said, well, why is blessing so powerful? I think that we would have to say it's because of the convergence of three vital biblical principles, three huge priorities in God's own heart and his design of all things. And that is the power of faith, the power of words and the power of sowing and reaping. Those three things, the power of faith, the power of words and the power of sowing and reaping. All three of those come together when we think about what it means to bless someone. Well, the book is extremely practical and the book we're talking about is The Power to Bless, written by Pastor Alan Wright and sitting in the studio today.

We're going to get down and talk about some of this practicality. And so it begins with faith, I understand. And is that wrapping your own mind and spirit around the faith vision that you have for the person you care about?

Exactly. So we've often said this, and this is just how simple blessing is. If you look at someone's life and you see a possibility for their future and you have faith for it, and you speak that over their life, I believe this can be. I believe that you can conquer this. I believe that you're going to be able to improve.

I can see you one day doing this and such. So those are faith statements. And when you're able to see that and maybe see it more vividly or clearly than the other and you speak it, that's what blessing is doing. So that's why it has such a beautiful prophetic quality to it, is that it's seeing a destiny.

It's seeing things for future. You know, I think what's one of the most interesting things in the Bible about faith is that Jacob, who was such a scoundrel of a guy, you know, I mean, he was a conniver, a striver, a deceiver, stole his brother's blessing, lived in a lot of despair for most of his life because he thought that his son Joseph was dead. He practiced parental favoritism.

He was confused about a lot of things. And Jacob made it into the faith hall of fame in Hebrews chapter 11. You know, the chapter I'm speaking of the chapter that has all this impressive list of people who had mountain moving faith. You know, all the people you'd think like Noah built a huge boat on dry ground because he had faith that the rain was coming, though there wasn't a cloud in the sky. Abraham and Sarah.

Hundred year old man, his 90 year old wife, believing they're going to have a baby would be the seed of a nation. He makes it in there, of course. Joshua marched around the thick walls of Jericho because he believed they would tumble at the sound of the trumpet. I mean, this is this is the list of the great men and women of faith. Moses is in the list. Daniel, David, Samson, the great prophets.

And so it's at the Hebrews 11. No surprises there until you come to this about Jacob and the and the and the verse 21 says, by faith, Jacob, when dying, blessed each of the sons of Joseph, bowing in worship over the head of his staff. Old Jacob made the list.

And look what he made the list for. He made that the faith hall of fame, this old, conniving, confused deceiver. He made the faith hall of fame because he blessed. Just because he blessed the sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Manasseh. Joseph brought him and said, would you bless him? And so Jacob blessed them. And it leaves you wondering, is blessing someone an act of faith on par with the Red Sea parting or the Jericho walls tumbling?

And we must say in conclusion from Hebrews 11, the answer to that question is yes. In God's eyes, blessing others, one of the most powerful expressions of faith on Earth. If you can envision a positive future for someone and you can speak it out in faith, then you're in God's faith hall of fame. So blessing always begins with faith for someone else to flourish. Faith is a sort of sanctified imagination. You imagine what can be and you see it in your mind's eye. And it comes from God's word and from God's prompting in your own heart.

And when you can you can see something that can be, but not does not yet exist. Well, that's that's really what the Bible calls faith and believing that it can be. Faith is a very, very contagious and powerful thing. So I think the first principle that is going on in blessing is that you speak blessing because you have faith for someone else to be able to flourish. And when you do so, you have a holy imagination for what their life can be. And that positive vision comes out. And faith is just powerful. Without faith, the Bible says it's impossible to please God. With faith, mountains can move.

So that's the first thing I think, Daniel, that's going on. Why does blessing work? It works because it's an expression of faith. The power to bless is where this material is coming from. And this has been a life's work for Pastor Alan. It's a book that's out now. And by the way, there are many resources related to this book, a lot of practicality. And you can find out more at Pastor Alan dot org.

Come to our Web site and you'll find more about this book and the resources available, The Power to Bless. So the vision part of it. And then you get into the words and then we're going to talk about sowing and reaping. But let's let's pause here and talk about the power.

I mean, I guess there's a here's a sequel, right? The power of words. Well, it really is in many ways to speak of the power of blessing is to speak about the power of words. The Bible's full of almost shocking statements about how powerful words are. Remember, God created the world by speaking words. Let there be light.

And there was light. And then you come to somewhere like the Proverbs and you just see over and over and over like Proverbs 25, 11, a word fitly spoken like apples of gold and a setting of silver. Gracious words. Proverbs 16, 24 are like a honeycomb sweetness to the soul from the fruit of a man's mouth.

His stomach is satisfied. Let he is satisfied by the yield of his lips. And and most famously, Proverbs 18, verse 21, death and life are in the power of the tongue. So words are exceedingly powerful when when you think of the the spirit of God in both Hebrew and Greek. You need to also think of the breath of God, because breath and spirit are the same word.

Both in Hebrew and in Greek is the same word. So the the the breath of God is the spirit of God. And in a very real sense, when you speak words, your breath is the thing that's filling up the word.

Right. So so there's not a separation between the spirit of God and the word of God. God's word is just full of God in the same way that if if I say let there be light, those words are full of my breath.

All right. And so words are exceedingly powerful. And and words, words are probably one of the most important ways that were made in the image of God, that we have this gift of language. Language, most scientists would say, is a big part of what makes us human. It makes us also therefore Godlike. God created the world with words and then gave us words to help shape the world. James compared the tongue to a rudder that steers a massive ship. And the people of God, Hebrew people knew the creative force of words. So words don't fall empty to the ground there. Like someone said, words are like toothpaste.

I mean, once it comes out, you can't stuff them back in. And so, Daniel, when we bless someone, our words are conveying the blessing. But the blessing is so closely associated with the word that you, in a sense, can't separate it. So it's like if an art expert looks at a painting and says that's a masterpiece.

Well, the declaration that it's a masterpiece makes it a masterpiece. Maybe a better example is a 24 year old Wisconsin man named Manuel Franco. He bought $10 worth of Powerball tickets and discovered some years ago that one of his tickets had won $768 million. Well, he said he couldn't even function the next day at work because he's too worried about the ticket getting lost or stolen. On the one hand, a winning lottery ticket is worthless. It's a worthless piece of paper. On the one hand, it's not worth anything, but it's a symbol. And if it had the winning numbers on there, it's a symbol of the fact that he had the winning numbers.

So on the one hand, that piece of paper is worthless, but on the other hand, it was worth $768 million. In other words, the reality is so linked to the symbol at times that the symbol and the reality can't be separated. I think that's the way it is with words. You know, and it's an intriguing thing. I write about this in the book that an intriguing thing that in the beginning that God gave, gave Adam the right to name the animals. He could identify things by their correct name. You know, he could see an animal and know that's not my wife.

That's not a that's not a fit helpmate for me. That's a raccoon or something. Well, I think that that what we call something. And it has a kind of a mystical power. That's why this is why even a schoolchildren, somebody calls us a name and everything within us wants to resist that. Right.

Don't call me that, you know, I am not that right. I think because we're we're we're resisting the idea that words are just empty. You know, there's nothing more false than the old sticks and stones will break my bones. Your words will never hurt me. Sticks and stones will break my work by bones, but your words can really hurt me or can really help me. So we're talking today, Daniel, about why is blessing so powerful? What makes it work?

Kind of the slow motion replay. Let's see what's going on here. Well, what's going on here is faith. That's a vision of what can be and words, which is just God's way of helping to shape this world. And so you've got the power of words and the power of faith together. And this is a big part of why blessing is so powerful. That's Pastor Alan Wright in our special broadcast.

And we'll have our final word today coming up in just a moment. We all need a positive, faith-filled vision spoken over our lives. Without it, we'll never rise to our God-given potential.

With it, we can let go of the past and move forward confidently under the favor of God. If you'd like to replace every curse with blessing in your life, and if you'd like to learn how to speak life and empower the people you love, contact us today to get Pastor Alan Wright's new Amazon bestselling book, The Power to Bless. And when you do, for a limited time, we'd like to send you four additional life-changing resources to help you discover the power to bless. We'll send you Pastor Alan's video masterclass and study guide called Speak Life. And we'll also include Pastor Alan's new video course, The Power to Bless, perfect for small groups or individual devotions.

It also comes with a study guide. Contact us today to get Alan Wright's beautiful hardcover book, The Power to Bless, and receive the four additional life-enriching resources. It's time to learn how blessed you are in Christ and to discover the power to bless. Learn more at PastorAlan.org. That's PastorAlan.org, or call 877-544-4860. Pastor Alan Wright with us in the studio today unpacking themes of the book, The Power to Bless, and the practicality of this, what you're talking about, even kind of this slow motion replay, plays out in even a worksheet that's found in the book where you go step by step.

Okay, here's how we are if you do want to impart a blessing on someone, you take a moment, you think, you reflect, you have this faith vision. And then you go into a literal fill in the blank using words. And then we're going to get to sowing and reaping here, which I got to tell you, I practiced this with my own kids just in recent weeks, and the surprising reaping that I have found was my youngest daughter came back and says, Dad, the thing you blessed me with is the thing I got in trouble the day before about.

You really think I can get better at this? Well, it's working. There you go. It's working.

It's working. You know, in a real sense, we're all just farmers, and our words are like seed. And you just you find it in the opening pages of the of the scripture and it runs all the way through. God made everything to operate according to seed time and harvest, and he made everything to operate such that. All seed reproduces after its own kind, everything in this world reproduces after its own kind. There's no escaping the law of sowing and reaping. That's just the way God set it up. And you never will ever sow an orange seed and get an apple tree to come.

Nowhere in nature does that happen. So why in the world would we ever think that we could sow a word of hate and reap some love coming back? We won't. You can't sow a seed of impatience and expect patience to come back. A farmer intentionally sows what he wants to reap.

Let's say that again. A farmer intentionally sows the kind of seed that is the harvest that he wants to reap. So it's just about this simple, that if you can look into someone's life and just say, here's what I think I'd like to see happen.

Here's what God would like to see happen in their life. And you envision that. That's the kind of seed you need to sow.

And I think we can train ourselves in this. You know, it starts small, like a seed, but you plant it. You just plant a little seed that's there. The kingdom of God, Jesus says, like a mustard seed, is like the smallest little seed. One time, to make a point, I handed out mustard seeds at church on a Sunday morning.

I think we might still have some mustard seeds floating around in those pew cushions somewhere, because they're just so small you can barely see them. And yet it produces a really large plant. Well, I think that's part of understanding what makes blessing so powerful, is that your words feel like they're small, but it's like seed. It's like seed. And you just sow it. You just sow it.

You keep sowing it. You look into someone's life when you bless them, and what you're doing is you're saying, here's what I believe can be. And when you speak that word into them, you're sowing into them like a seed that will, with a proper nourishment, it will grow.

And when you withhold the seed, or you plant an opposite seed from what you'd like to see happen, then you can expect that that's the kind of thing you're going to see happen. So to sum all this up, I think, Daniel, and there may be some other explanations for it, but in my decades of practicing and researching blessing, I think if someone says, OK, I want to know why is this so powerful? What makes blessing work?

So it's these three things that come together. It is a powerful thing to believe a positive future. That's faith. And faith, we see all the way through the Bible, is a means by which God changes the world. But also the power of words. Words themselves carry freight and help shape the world. And there's a principle of sowing and reaping. So when you bless, what you do is you have faith for someone's life. You speak those words of faith and positive vision over their life.

And when you do, you're like a farmer and you're sowing something into them. It'll come back. It'll come back. It may start small. It may take a long time. A harvest doesn't automatically come on overnight. That's not the way it works.

But there is no other way that you get an orange other than sowing an orange seed. And if you want to help someone believe for a better future, there's no other way you can help them except for sowing into them the kinds of words that can help them see themselves as valuable in God's eyes and in your own eyes. And that can really change lives. The power to bless comes from faith and words and sowing and reaping. Today's good news message is a listener supported production of Alan Wright Ministries.