The Blessing upon You

The Blessing upon You

Numbers 6:22-27 - The Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them, The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you; the Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.”

This passage is talking about how God asked Moses tell Aaron that this is the way He wanted to show blessings and favor to the Israelites.  First off I thought it was interesting how God only said to bless Israel specifically. God wants to bless everyone, but he wants to bestow upon his chosen people a special blessing. I think it’s cool that the children of God, you and me, get to partake in that and receive such an honor as that. He gave Aaron specific instruction to bring blessings them, and today, God is sending people out to do the same thing in other people’s life. So its starts out by saying ‘The Lord bless you and keep you;’ I know sometimes I could take the word ‘blessing’ for granted. I say that because sometimes you are tempted to think of it in the way that you would receive the blessing of worldly riches, or a life of ease.  But we know that every blessing from God is unique to what we need for that moment, in that season. And, yes, sometimes God bless people in that way, but we have to make sure that we recognize all the little blessing He sends us.  It could be as small as a brother or sister-in-Christ encouraging us when we are discouraged. Next part says ‘and keep you’. What does that actually mean when he says keep you. So I took a look at Psalm 121:3-8 and it says, “He will not let your foot be moved; he who keeps you will not slumber. Behold, he who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep. The Lord is your keeper; the Lord is your shade on your right hand.

Masada; Southern District Israel

 The sun shall not strike you by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord will keep you from all evil; he will keep your life. The Lord will keep your going out and your coming in from this time forth and forevermore.” God is always watching over you, he is active to guard you right in this moment. The portions where it mentions the sun made me think about the Masada. And how God is our fortress and our rock. He isn’t talking about a little rock, he is talking about a FORTRESS. By day the rock will shade you and protect you, by night you climb into the fortress to be protected from your enemies. That is what God means by keeping you. We are kept by God. Safe and secure from the things of this world if withhold from temptations. I think it’s a blessing in and of itself that we are kept by God and not of things of this world. Some people are kept by their pride, selfishness, drugs, pornography and etc. But we are upheld by God.  

Side View of Masada

‘The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;’ I really thought this part was interesting because I didn’t really understand what it meant to have God shine his face upon you.  Both Daniel and David (Daniel 9:17; Psalm 80:3), truly knew what it meant when they said to have God shine. I feel like they both were trying to convey it in way like God granting you favor. By that favor he shows us, he want to be gracious in the midst of that. He wants to show his children blessing and favor because he loves them.

‘The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.’ Whenever the bible says to lift up ones face/eyes it means to pay attention to. I like in David Guzik commentary, He said, “When God blesses, keeps, shines, and is gracious towards His people, any look He casts towards His people is filled with nothing but blessing. His loving attention is on the believer!” How cool is it that we get to be a part of that! Last but not least God says, “So shall they put my name upon the people of Israel, and I will bless them.” God marks us with a seal of ownership. He puts a promise there too, I will bless them! It is so cool that have that blessing upon you. Spurgeon says, When God saith, 'I will', all the devils in hell cannot turn aside the blessing, and all the ages of eternity cannot change the King's words."

Lately, I have been in this weird funk where I am just no seeing in myself any inner passion when I open up the word and read it. It was almost like the intention was there but I was just missing the mark. I knew I had to read and to be faithful to meditate in the word but I was just struggling. But this morning God really shone his face upon me. He restored my flame in a sense. We have been doing a lot of cleaning projects in the church here because it’s an off season for the kids. And God has been showing me that, if you can faithfully scrub the floor with a cheerful attitude then that’s a blessing!  If you can clean the bathroom and the kitchen 2x a week with a joy in your heart then that’s a blessing, because it’s doing it to the Lord and not man. (Colossians 3:23) I get the blessing of blessing others and in return I get the blessing of God in my life and grating me wisdom of the word.  

Application:

I am going to find a way to bless my overseers this week