Daily Blessing Compilation #13

Alan Wright, pastor, Bible teacher, and author of his latest book, The Power to Bless.

Part of the fruitfulness that emerges in the life of a person who's been blessed is that it comes out of a commitment and a work ethic in their life that was born out of seeing themselves as a valuable human being who has something to contribute. 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 today's discussion from the studio in our special blessing broadcast with Pastor Alan.

Reading from an excerpt in his new book, The Power to Bless. And Pastor Alan, it's good to be with you again today. Can't wait to jump in. And we're going to be looking a bit today at chapter six, right halfway through the book almost.

And there is so much good stuff here. I can't wait to talk about some of the themes from this chapter. Before we jump into it, though, I want to remind our friends, if you're not able to stay with us throughout the entire program, you can get our special resource right now, which can be yours for your donation this month to Alan Wright Ministries. So as you listen to today's discussion, go deeper and we'll be happy to send you today's special offer with your donation of any amount to Alan Wright Ministries. Contact us at Pastor Alan dot org. That's Pastor Alan dot org or call 877-544-4860. And more on all of this later in the program.

Right now, as we get started, I'll read the first line of Chapter six. It's your words, Pastor Alan. I coach Bennett's childhood soccer team for years because no one else would do it. My first question is, I feel like most of my friends in America did not grow up knowing inherently how to play soccer. This is more of an acquired sport that we learn as Americans, as opposed to maybe baseball or football, where it's just more like you're born into it.

What was your story on this? Did you have to learn the finer points of coaching? Unfortunately, I actually played soccer in high school on a good high school team. And so I actually knew something about soccer. And for years, Bennett was on a soccer team and I didn't let anybody know that I had played soccer before because I just knew what would happen is, you know something about soccer, you're going to be the coach. And so for years I hid the fact and then we lost our coach and I just didn't have the heart to hide it from people anymore that I actually had some soccer experience. And so I became the coach for a season.

I guess about three or four years or so coaching Bennett's soccer team. But it was fun. Well, it is a fun game.

And I think fun is the key words. We're diving into this particular topic here and kind of the sentiments from your wife in this whole endeavor. So as we jump into the book and the discussion in this particular section is blessed to be twice fruitful. So why this story and what point are you making?

Well, it was a funny it's a funny thing. You know, when you begin thinking about fruitfulness and success, which we want to talk about today. The fact of the matter is that God does care about this. He wants us to have fruitful lives.

And maybe it's not exactly the way that we might envision it sometimes. But at first when I was coaching the soccer team, our guys, thankfully we were in the less competitive league. And so, you know, I remember the guy who was the head of the league, he got all the coaches together for a training. He said, I remember talking about little kids playing soccer. So there's two things they want. So number one, they want to kick the ball.

And number two, they want to eat a snack. He said, so the rules and the optimist soccer league are everybody gets to kick the ball and everybody gets to eat a snack. And so everybody got to play.

Everybody get a snack. So it wasn't the real serious league. But we at first our team just we just we just weren't very good. I was trying my best to coach him to get some better skills going.

And it's a little bit surely it was a little bit improvement. But every week we would be walking out on a Saturday morning. And my wife would say, now, Bennett, remember, it's not it's not whether you win or lose that matters. It is all about having fun. So you go out there and have fun.

Yeah. And then we go out and we go lose, you know, and then we come back the next week. And we're walking out on Saturday morning.

She said, remember, Bennett? It's finally he'd say, I know, mom, it's not whether you win or lose. It's just whether you have fun. We'll try to have fun today. And after after about losing about five games in a row, I finally just came. I told my happy non-competitive wife, I said, sweetie, I do appreciate your positive words. I really do. And I know I can tend to be too competitive. But I said, could you please quit saying that? I mean, I it does matter at least a little bit whether we win or lose.

I do want to do some winning. And I said, furthermore, I said, I think that, you know, though males, especially in our society, tend to become over competitive and people idolize success. I said, these boys are going to have to grow up and live in a world of some competition. And if one of these grows up to be a corporate salesman, his boss probably wouldn't send them out saying, remember, it's not whether you make the sale or not. It's just about having fun. That's not what they're going to hear.

And if that salesman comes home dejected one day because he just lost his major account and didn't know he was going to pay the bills, it wouldn't help if his wife said, well, as long as you had fun today, dear, you know, that's not the way it's going to be. And so and and hurt me. She smiled. She understood. And over the years, our team got better at kicking the ball.

And and our last season, actually, I think we went undefeated and and everybody realized the snacks always taste better when you win the game. So I bring all that up to say, Daniel, you know, it's a tricky thing to talk about success because in American culture, we can make an idol out of success and whatever that means. But when Joseph had his second child in Egypt, he named him Ephraim. It is in Hebrew should be pronounced Ephraim. And it means doubly fruitful or twice fruitful. Part of that was this is a second second boy. But here's Joseph, who was experienced so much hardship, as we've talked about, named his firstborn Manasseh, which means forgotten all my troubles.

But the second born he called Ephraim. It means it means I'm twice as fruitful. I think partly it's really prophetic. It means I'm twice as fruitful as I could ever imagine being. I'm so blessed by God. And so for thirty eight hundred years, Jewish dads have been following the command of scripture to bless their boys, saying, may God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh. And when you say that to someone, may God make you like Ephraim, it's a wonderful picture of what blessing does in general. And that is it's blessing people for the fruitfulness of their lives. And that's a big part of what blessing does. It helps empower others to live fruitfully. In other words, in the simplest terms, blessing helps fuel our success. Well, in the power to bless. And by the way, we have talked about it a lot throughout this series on how practical it is.

And by the time you make it even to the end of the book, you'll have even in the appendix, even I would call it worksheet style. Fill in the blank to help you get started on crafting a blessing for someone and to bless them into fruitfulness. Really, I mean, I think that's kind of part of our goal here is to say, you know what? It's a godly thing to want to be fruitful and to be successful in God. And God certainly has that plan for your life. So blessing someone to be fruitful is what we can learn from this application here. You know, God in the beginning, he blessed Adam and Eve and then he said, be fruitful and multiply.

So blessing is pictured as a mystical grace at work that's helping foster someone's fruitfulness. And he said in Deuteronomy, he'll love you, he'll bless you and multiply you. He'll bless the fruit of your womb, the fruit of the ground.

You know, when he sent the people into the promised land, he intended them to win every battle. Jesus wanted his disciples to be fruitful. He said in John 15, 8, by this my father glorified that you bear much fruit. So when he tells one of his most important parables, it's about a man, a wealthy man leaves his servant various amounts of treasure, talents.

And he really comes back and commends the servants who invested their talents for a fruitful return. So it's important that we accept the fact that there's something beautiful and good about about bearing fruit. And certainly that includes the fruit of the spirit, love and joy and peace and patience and kindness. And so what I think happens is that when we bless, we are speaking a positive vision over someone's life, affirming them, giving them a sense of deep acceptance that is in our own heart of love and in Christ. And what happens is when people are blessed, they begin to bless other people. And that's where real fruitfulness begins to come from is that we feel so blessed ourselves that we can't help but be a blessing to someone else. A friend of mine says, you know, he's heard the quote that it doesn't matter what you believe as long as you're sincere about it.

And he says, well, if you're wrong, then I guess you're sincerely wrong. But I guess and maybe it does feel a little strange because I think some of us in the Christian faith grew up thinking that you shouldn't care too much about results. And it's just about your either your commitment to God, your obedience to God or something along those lines.

But in the book here, you do talk about that even you fell into that, right? Falling to believe that results matter so much. You know, results aren't ultimate, but it's important to God that we live fruitful lives. We're made for that. So let's just talk about a fruit of kindness, for example. The people that I love and know include my own children and others.

I'd like for them to be more kind. That's a fruit of the spirit. That's a that's a wonderful thing. Well, how does that happen? Well, as interesting researchers, A.M. Eisen and P.F. Levine conducted a famous study back in 1972. It was all about observing the potential altruism of people who had just stepped out of a phone booth. You know, remember that ancient clear box that had a device in there for calling people. So what they did was they set it up such that on the sidewalk, a seemingly random passerby would drop some papers just as a person stepped out of the phone booth. And the question of the study was, oh, how many people after making a phone call and stepping out of a phone booth would stoop down and help a lady pick up fumbled papers on the sidewalk? That was the question. And Daniel, the researchers were shocked to discover a dismal four percent of people helped.

I mean, almost nobody would help. But the researchers did discover that something happened almost 100 percent of the time. And that is that the person in the phone booth after their phone call would reach their finger into the coin return to see if there was an extra coin down in the coin return. They found almost 100 percent of people did that. So they did something.

They said, what will happen? Would it change anything if a person finds a coin, a dime down in the coin return and then they step out of the phone booth? Will there be a difference in how many, what percentage of those people would help a lady pick up her papers off the sidewalk?

It was shocking. Remember, stepping out, not finding a coin, four percent of people would help the lady. And they found it on average of the people who had found a dime in the coin return. Eighty seven percent of those who had found the dime would stoop down and help the lady pick up her fumbled papers. So people were 22 times more likely to help someone else if they'd found a dime.

Yeah, a dime. Which raises the question, if people are 22 times nicer when they find 10 cents in a phone booth, what manner of radical love might fill their hearts if they discovered themselves blessed with every spiritual blessing in Christ? You know, you think in the Bible, you think of people that Jesus blessed and think of like Zacchaeus, who was a despised tax collector and selfish. And the tax collectors were all cheats.

They were all liars and cheats and despised by their fellow Jews. And Jesus just blessed them. Zacchaeus, you know, he said, you're the kind of person I'd like to get to know and like to be with.

I'd like to go spend the day with you. And he did. And Jesus gave Zacchaeus no law, no ultimatum. Just blessed him.

And Zacchaeus spontaneously decided to give half his wealth to the poor. Yeah. See, people don't become more loving and kind and generous when we tell them they ought to be better Christians. People become more loving, kind and generous when we bless them and bless people, therefore end up blessing people. And blessed people are just way more fruitful than stressed people. Yeah.

Yeah. It's a principle. It's coming from the book, The Power to Bless, written by Pastor Alan Wright.

And there is so much good information here that is so practical that you can start today, tomorrow applying to those around you, those you love, finding a blessing for your own life. And then kind of with the story of the people in the phone booth pay it forward. And that's a great thing.

So on this last note here where you're talking about being fruitful and maybe not living in a sense out of anxiety and stress, but being free and fruitful, there is a personal story involving your son who is quite the golfer and a gift of a putter. Oh, I love the story. You know, it's one that I tell in sermons and such. And it's in the book, but it's a perfect illustration of this that I think sometimes we get duped into believing that we ought to withhold the blessing from people. We ought to withhold our affirmation because then they'll try harder.

Yeah, they'll do better. In other words, we believe the exact opposite of the biblical message of blessing. We tend to believe that people will be more fruitful if we withhold our blessing.

And I just so want to expose how wrong that thinking is. And here's a great story that illustrates. So Bennett was little. He loved to play golf. He's a good little golfer. And he needed a new putter. He knew exactly the putter he wanted.

And putters are costly. Well, our friend Bob Roach was been a dear friend and and he wanted to bless. He went to invest in Bennett's golf. He said, Bennett, I want to get you that putter.

And Bennett was just, oh, that's so excited. He said, so I'm going to take you to the golf store, Bob said. And and you just have to prove the putter works for you. Of course, I want to see you make some six footers on the stores, you know, putting green there.

But you go in there, you make eight out of ten. I'm going to get you that putter. You know, so we laughed about it. And and we went down to Golf Galaxy and and they found the exact putter. And and Bennett's putting around with it.

Bob says, all right, let me make sure it works. Let me see you make some on the little AstroTurf putting green in the Golf Galaxy. Well, Bennett put some six footers down.

There was there's no break. It's all flat putt. Bennett's a good little putter. Well, he's making almost all of them. He's not even thinking about just boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. Oh, a couple of them might have lipped out. Well, all of a sudden, Bob goes, OK, wait right there. He says, by my count, you're now seven out of nine. And I remember I said, you got to make eight out of ten or else.

And all of a sudden Bennett looked at him like, you're kidding. I thought I thought it was just a joke. I didn't know there actually was a stipulation here. I didn't know there was a law.

I didn't know there was a requirement. And Bob's looking at him real serious, like he's got to make this putter or else he doesn't get the putter. So Bennett, I mean, this just shows this is this what I'm saying. This is what happens when you when you think that you're going to help somebody by heaping the pressure on them. Bennett stepped away from the ball. You know, he's been out there just rolling with me.

I'm not even thinking about it. And acts like he's reading the putt, you know, trying to see is there any break here, any slope? And then he comes back. He nervously crouches over the putt, stands there for a long time thinking about it all. Finally, he makes the all-important putt and just yanks it left of the hole, missed the hole by a mile. So he made seven putts without even thinking about it. And now this one putt that he had to make, he missed it terribly.

Well, it just it just proves, doesn't it, that anxiety always leads towards a lack of fruitfulness in our lives. There's a reason they like to, you know, we say ice the kicker before the big kick that might win the game. They call timeout. They want him to think about it. They want him to get nervous.

The guy getting ready to shoot the free throws at the free throw line at a basketball game. They they'll call a timeout. They just want him to think about it because really what law does is says you got to be able to do this or else you won't be blessed. When blessing just does the opposite, blessing is saying you are being affirmed and accepted and loved.

And because of that security, therefore you can excel. Well, thankfully, Bob was just joking about the putter and he got that putter for Bennett anyway. And Bennett when I talked to him, he said we probably ought to name that putter grace.

And he had a tournament I think that following week and had one of his best showings ever putted really well with it. Don't withhold blessing and think that that is going to motivate people to actually be more successful. It sabotages our success when we get uptight and when people withhold the blessing, then we become anxious.

God's plan, just like he did with Adam and Eve, he blessed them. And then he said, OK, now you're blessed. You know who you are.

You know, you're loved and accepted. Go be fruitful and multiply. So withholding the blessing seems to choke our our productivity. Exactly. Yeah. But in the book here, you say it becomes in the opposite. Bless people work harder than those that are searching for blessing.

And you actually saw that play out as well. Well, you know, it's interesting. I always laugh about, you know, both both my kids were were really good students and they were quite self-motivated. You know, honestly, I know parents drool when I say this and I almost hesitate to say it. But, you know, never once did I have to, you know, get on them about studying.

I was never having to crack the whip and say, get in those books. You know, they were just they were just always studying. They had a real strong work ethic about that. And and I almost just sort of wondered about it because it was it was kind of funny because, you know, we homeschooled our kids for a variety of reasons.

And and so we had some freedom. But, you know, they the kids were taking real serious courses. And by the time Bennett's in high school, he's taking AP classes and all that stuff.

Sometimes they'd be like, Bennett, it's a beautiful day. Let's go. Let's go play golf. You'd be like, no, dad, I got to do some AP physics. OK, joke. Listen, we homeschool. I'm the principal. Let's blow it off. And he's like, no, I got to do the work, dad.

It was almost like reversal. Right. Yeah. And and where do you get that that from? And I remember one time when Bennett was a teenager and I just finally asked, I said, I love your work ethic for studying and and you always do well. I said, you know, how does that how does that work for you? Because I never have pressured you.

Not once have I had to say, hey, you ought to be doing more. And he said, you know, it's really not that complicated. He said, I got that somewhere along the way. I got the idea that I'm an A student. So if I'm an A student, then I feel like I need to study and I'll do whatever it takes to make an A, because that's kind of who I am. You see what he's saying there? He's saying that you get an identity and then you live out of that identity.

So you're far better off. To convince your child through the power of blessing, you have a good mind and that you're a good student. Then you are to simply use all your energy trying to badger them to study more. Once you develop an identity, you live out of that identity. I think that's part of what fuels fruitfulness and success in our lives is blessing helps shape an identity. You bless someone and they see themselves as a person that's designed for fruitfulness. They see themselves as a person who has something important to contribute and they're going to live out of that. If you if they receive the opposite message, if they receive curse, like your life doesn't matter. Why would that person ever want to apply themselves? So part of the fruitfulness that emerges in the life of a person who's been blessed is that it comes out of a commitment and a work ethic in their life.

That was born out of seeing themselves as a valuable, a valuable human being who has something to contribute. 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.

So the bumper sticker is in error. Yeah, you're saved. Yeah, God loves you. Don't let it go to your head. No, let it go to your head. Let it go to your head. Let it go to your heart.

Let it go to everything within you. Yeah, we say don't let it go to your head, meaning, oh, don't get prideful and puffed up about it. And a lot of people just end up withholding even compliments from other people thinking it's going to puff them up.

There's a huge difference between talking to someone in a way that makes them feel self-absorbed versus talking to someone that makes them have a deep sense of self-worth. So we're instilling self-worth. We're not creating selfish people, we're creating people that understand their lives in the context of God's good plan that you have been created by God with good works for you to do. From the very foundation of the earth, there are good works that God's already prepared for you to do. He's blessed you to be fruitful. So we might as well agree with God and bless one another for fruitful lives. Today's Good News message is a listener-supported production of Allen Wright Ministries.