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The Father's Business Podcast
The Father's Business Podcast
Strength to Equal Your Days-From Striving to Strength: The Gift of Blessing
In our fast-paced, externally-focused world, we often overlook the deepest part of ourselves - our human spirit. One of the most transformative biblical practices is blessing the human spirit. Though this concept might sound unfamiliar to many modern Christians, it's deeply rooted in Scripture and offers profound healing and restoration.
While "blessing" gets casually tossed around in our culture, this episode reveals its true nature as a profound spiritual practice with life-changing power. At our core, we all wrestle with foundational questions: Who am I? What am I here for? Do I have what it takes? Am I truly loved? Blessing addresses these questions by reminding our spirits of God-given truth rather than letting our experiences, wounds, or lies define us.
When blessing becomes a regular practice, it produces profound fruit in our lives. Our identity and self-worth are restored. We experience peace that isn't easily shaken by circumstances. We gain a greater sense of God's purpose and the bigger picture. Our intimacy with the Father deepens. We're able to live with our spirit, soul, and body in proper alignment. Physically, emotionally, and spiritually, we become more whole - not because we've strived harder, but because we've allowed God to speak to the deepest part of who we are.
Ready to experience the "strength that equals your days"? This episode offers both the theological foundation and practical tools to begin nurturing your spirit through the power of blessing.
The Father's Business was founded by Sylvia Gunter to encourage people to a deeper relationship with God. I'm Elizabeth Gunter Powell.
Speaker 2:And I am Kimberly Roddy. Welcome to the Father's Business Podcast. We are so glad that you've joined us. Welcome to the Father's Business Podcast. Today we are going to be diving into something that is truly life-giving, so we encourage you to pay attention and listen today with open ears and an open mind, open heart.
Speaker 1:Today we're going to be talking about the power of blessing, specifically blessing the human spirit, and Kimberly you know, the word blessing gets thrown around in our culture a lot these days, and even here in the South we have a phrase we love to say well, just bless their heart. But what we're talking about is not the kind of idea of just this feel-good phrase. It is a deeply biblical, profoundly healing and transformational concept that we teach a lot about at the Father's Business and through the Rock Journey and some of the other things that we've been able to do, and so we're going to talk about a little bit about what is the Spirit, why blessings matter, how to do it and some of the fruit that comes from it as we learn to align our spirit, souls and bodies with Father, son and Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2:We have several other podcasts where we have talked about the power of blessing blessing your spirit. If you go back and check out the Ruach Journey series Ruach Journey Study Session 1, which was released in September of 2023, we talked about blessing your spirit and what that looked like. We also talk about blessings for families. We have several devotional podcasts and written devotionals that are about you are blessed, to be a blessing, the overcomer, blessing. We talk a lot about blessing at the Father's Business. Today's episode is in the series that we are doing from our most recent resource called Strength to Equal your Days. It is a 365-day reading of prayers and blessings, and we talk a lot about blessings here at the Father's Business because, as Elizabeth just said, it is a deeply biblical concept. So, elizabeth, speak a little bit more about that, because it's really more than a concept, if we're honest, right? Oh yeah.
Speaker 1:The idea of our spirit is more than just a theological concept. It is the core essence of who we are, and we have several podcasts that Kimberly just mentioned that go into a lot of deep biblical teaching on this, and so just to kind of give a summary of that, the word spirit is ruach in Hebrew, which is where the name of our study Ruach Journey comes from, and it's pneuma in Greek, and both of those words mean breath, and it refers to Genesis 2-7, where it says God formed man from the dust and breathed into him the breath of life. So God breathed into Adam when he was creating man and therefore, as he knits us together in our mother's womb, he breathes into us, and that breath of God that is breathed into you is your spirit.
Speaker 2:We see that throughout scripture. One of those passages is Zechariah 12, 1, where it says that the same God who stretched out the heavens and laid the earth's foundations also formed your spirit within you. So think about that. Let that settle in you. God handcrafted your spirit.
Speaker 1:This is why I'm so passionate about this teaching is because I so love the depth of that truth of how God handcrafted each one of us. And before we were in the womb we were known. Jeremiah 1.5 says we were known and set apart. And God not only gave us life, but one of my all-time favorite verses that I've talked about a lot on this podcast Job 10-12, talks about how he not only gave us our spirit, but then he watched over our spirit from the womb. And so our spirit connects us to God. It's eternal, it's created by Him, its design is to lead the soul and the body so that spirit, soul and body are all under the control of Father, son and Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1:And this is where it'll be helpful to go back and listen to the other podcasts for the much deeper teaching on this. Everyone, whether they are a believer or not, has a spirit, and what we are on a journey to do in this life is to allow our spirit to be connected to God's spirit through a relationship with Jesus Christ at the center of all of that. But everyone you meet today, whether they are a follower of God or not, they have a spirit, and that spirit was crafted by God, because we're all created in his image, and so there's a place where we get to speak into and bless and be a part of helping people get their spirit connected to God's spirit. If you want to speak into and bless and be a part of helping people get their spirit connected to God's spirit, If you want to go back and hear some of that teaching that Elizabeth's referring to.
Speaker 2:January 23rd of 2025 and January 30th of 2025 are our most recent episodes on this teaching. On January 23rd, we released an episode called Biblical Foundation Teaching of Spirit, soul and Body and then the following week, on January 30th, we released a question and answer on the teaching of the Spirit, soul and Body. So those two podcasts will give you a much more in-depth understanding. As Elizabeth was saying, one of the things I'm going to cover today is why does blessing matter so much? I think, if we really look at it deep down, all of us, every person, is asking a couple of core questions.
Speaker 2:Obviously, who am I? That's a really important question that we ask. Who am I? What am I here for? What's my purpose? Why do I exist? What am I here for? Do I really have what it takes? And another one that we all ask is am I truly loved? Takes? And another one that we all ask is am I truly loved? If you really understand blessing, then you'll realize that when we bless someone's spirit, we invite them to find the real answers to those questions, because the real answers are in God's truth. They're not in our experiences, they're not in our wounds, they're not in the lies that we've told ourselves or that others have spoken about us. The real answers to those questions are in God's truth.
Speaker 1:For a lot of us I mean, it's my story included I didn't understand the concept of spirit, soul and body the way I do now till I was in my 30s. But that doesn't mean that I didn't have my spirit living inside of me, and I also. I became a Christian at an early age, so my spirit is connected to God's spirit and there's communion going on between the two. But my mind didn't understand what was going on and I think that's what's happening with a lot of people is our spirits have been ignored because we didn't understand the power of blessing. So imagine your whole life people talk about you, but never to you.
Speaker 1:And that's how I think many of our spirits have felt. I remember when I first my mind kind of understood this teaching, it was almost like I had this sense on the side of me going finally, like you know, finally she's catching up with where God and my spirit have been this whole time. And so blessing someone's spirit whether we're blessing our own spirit or blessing the spirits of others blessing recognizes and legitimizes the spirit and it says you are handcrafted by God, you are the beloved, you are at the core essence of who this person is, and it gives permission for our Spirit to rise up and to lead and to receive more from the Father, son and Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2:You know, elizabeth, I like it when you describe it that way of I imagine sitting in a room and people talking about you but not really talking to you. You do wonder who am I? Do I do I matter? Am I really loved? Like what am I here for Some of those questions I looked at I mentioned a few minutes ago, right, like, if no one's paying attention to you, then who are you and what do you matter?
Speaker 2:But but here's what, when, like when you said, when blessing comes into the, into the picture, it's like, oh, something deep inside you goes. Wait, I matter enough that they're talking to me, that they're speaking with me, that they're including me, right? And so what blessing does is it restores our identity and our legitimacy To a certain degree. After our story in Genesis, chapter three, we were fallen in sin and so we kind of disconnected from who God created us to be. We see early on in Genesis that God made us in his identity and that Trinity aspect is there in the beginning of creation, of spirit, soul and body, father, son and spirit. And so what blessing does is it restores that identity and it restores that legitimacy for what we were created for. We were created with intention and with purpose. It nurtures a sense of being known, of being chosen and being planned. A lot of people think well, I wasn't planned, I wasn't wanted. God planned you, god wanted you here on this earth. And it nurtures that sense when we bless. It also aligns us to live from our God-given design. We have a design.
Speaker 2:We often talk about the gifts of the Spirit. We talk about how we were designed to live and in all of those things we grow deeper and recognize, through blessing our spirit, more and more of how God has created us to live and to move and to be in this world, in our lives. And another thing that blessing does is it strengthens our capacity for intimacy with God. It's almost like when your spirit's not in play. You can have an intellectual knowledge of God, an intellectual relationship with God, a routine aspect to it. But involving your spirit in your relationship with God enlarges your capacity and takes you deeper. So a spirit that's blessed doesn't have to strive to earn love, it just knows it's already loved. And that's really where peace and joy take root, deep inside of us.
Speaker 1:And I think that's so huge, just to think about the many ways in my own life, the lives of others, we have strived to get that kind of acceptance. We strive to feel valued. We strive to do enough in order to earn love. And once your spirit really gets connected in that way, every time someone blesses my spirit I can feel it. There is this deepening of my security, of knowing that I am loved by God, because the most profound blessing we can receive is the Father heart of God.
Speaker 1:We are His special creation and not, as you said, kimberly, not just knowing that with my head, but really feeling that from the depth of who I am, I am accepted and beloved and I don't have to strive anymore the rest and the peace that comes with that and to understand at that deep core level His kind intentions towards us and His matchless love for us. When those hard times come, and His matchless love for us when those hard times come, I can know with my head God is for me, god is good, god will save me, god will be there for me. But what a difference to really feel it deep down in my core that, regardless of what comes against me, I have a Father, who deeply loves me and has been with me since before. My parents even knew I was there, like because you know, oftentimes it takes a minute for mama to understand she's pregnant. But even in those moments, god, when he knit me together in my mother's womb, knew I was there and was watching over me.
Speaker 2:You know, elizabeth, you were just talking about that most profound blessing we can receive is the father heart of God. That is so connected to what we talk about regularly, with who God is and who we are in Him. The most powerful work of healing can come when God really establishes who we are in Him, our true identity in Him. So when he reveals to us, through the blessing of the Father heart of God, who we really are, then he is restoring us to the image of Christ's glory within us. That's like powerful. You said earlier, it's not just a concept, it's not just a truth. I'm going to use that word because I don't have another word right now.
Speaker 1:It's such a powerful concept such a powerful concept and I mean I think, kimberly, we've all had that friend that you watch them go after guy after guy after guy. That's really no good for them, quite honestly, and we all have had those conversations of. I wish she could just see how much she really is, how beautiful she is, how much she's really worth. I wish she could really understand like she deserves so much better than this. And as much as I ache for a friend that I want them to understand their value and worth, it just blows my mind to think how much more God wants the same for us. He's looking at us and saying if you truly understood my matchless love for you, my identity for you, if you would live from that place, so much of the other things we run after and strive for would just fade away, because we would be so settled on the inside and we wouldn't be chasing after things that don't really matter anymore.
Speaker 2:And I think that's true of so, like all of us, right? Like you're chasing after, you know we're thinking about, like friends we've had, or females that have chased after guy after guy, looking for that perfect relationship, right, and you think of many men and boys who have chased after that perfect job or that perfect vocation, or that perfect sport achievement or business achievement or whatever it is. And for women it's the same thing. Like we are all fighting and chasing after something that truly stirs us into anxiety and chaos.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think when we allow God to speak to our spirit deep down in our core and say to us you are my beloved child and you do not have to strive anymore, the other thing it does is it reorders the chaos If we invite our spirits into the rightful place of priority and leadership over our soul and our body. That are, a lot of times, the ones asking these questions of am I enough and will I make it? And a lot of the fear that we feel and a lot of the uncertainty that we struggle with is coming more from the soul and body part of us that doesn't have the same kind of connection to God that our spirit does. It is more finite. The brain only has a human concept of who God is versus the eternity of God that he is depositing down into our spirits. And so if we invite our spirits to the rightful place of priority and leadership over the soul and body, I think of the verse Proverbs 25, 28, that says whoever has no rule over his own spirit is like a city broken down without walls. And, kimberly, that's what you were just talking about the people that are all of us, ourselves included at times that are chasing after things, trying to find the significance because our walls are broken down. We haven't taken the time to really allow God to speak deeply to our spirit and then allow our spirit to take the lead over our soul and body. But the problem is is it takes a lot of intentionality. And this gets back to the question of why do we bless, like, why can't I just say this once and it sticks? Well for most of us there is this battle going on inside of us. Our soul has been in charge for a long time and living from our spirit doesn't happen automatically. It takes practice, it takes patience, it takes God's grace in us.
Speaker 1:Ephesians 4.23 says to be constantly renewed in the spirit of your mind, like to have a fresh spiritual mindset all the time. And I don't like that word constantly because I'm like why can't it just stick? But Jesus understood. And then this goes back to John 15 and abiding where we are told to come and keep on coming to him, to keep abiding with him, where we are told to come and keep on coming to Him, to keep abiding with Him. It is a constant renewing of our minds, the spirit of our minds, to have a fresh spiritual mindset. And when we have that mindset, we're able to understand things more from God's perspective, versus being reactive, based on our circumstances and our finite understanding that our human mindset allows us to have. And so part of why we bless is to allow the fullness of everything that God wants us to live with to come forth, because that's where we can have peace when the circumstances don't look peaceful at all, because we're connecting to God's peace and allowing that to flow through us and nurture our spirits that way.
Speaker 2:And when we nurture our spirit with blessing, our soul and our body become healthier, our soul and our body become aligned with our spirit, we become more whole and we start living from God's design, from the inside out rather than the outside, seeking and striving and trying to run after broken cisterns and everything else under the sun to be whole and complete. And if you think of the Psalms, david gave us several perfect examples of this. One is in Psalm 42 in verse 5. He said David said why are you cast down on my soul, dr Justin Marchegiani? Hope in God. Like that was the psalmist's spirit speaking to his soul. Yeah, why are you so downcast on my soul? Hope in God. That's the picture of proper order. It's the spirit leading the soul and the body.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and all three are important. And we say this a lot, but I want to say it again for this podcast, we're never trying to say soul and body are bad and spirit is good. All three are important. But there is this leading that the spirit needs to do, because, even as the verse you just read, the spirit is able, in the midst of a hard situation, to say don't be downcast. This is who God is. Let's put our hope in him, not in the circumstances we find ourselves in. And so it is this dance that we need to learn to do. It does take intentionality, it takes practice, but the good news is, the more often you do it, the more natural it becomes.
Speaker 1:And I have been living in this and routinely blessing my spirit and blessing the spirits of others for a very long time before one of the first major crises that happened with my parents happened, and I remember in that moment I'm so glad I did, because in that moment there's no time to get ready. You know the ambulance is on the way and we're headed to the hospital and I'm feeling all 8,000 different types of emotions that I don't know what to do with, but because I had taken the time to really nurture my spirit, I could have peace in the middle of that chaos and my spirit could say to my soul even in this, it's going to be okay, because we know who God is and we know that we are his beloved children. It's going to be okay. And so, as we bless our spirit, there's profound fruit that you will start to see being produced in your life. The first one that I think of, kimberly, is one that you will start to see being produced in your life.
Speaker 1:The first one that I think of, kimberly is one that we've kind of been talking about. It's this restoration of our identity or our self-worth. You know, there's a lot of talk, even in all types of culture today, about positive self-talk and you know, and some people push back on this idea of blessing because of that, I'm like well, whose idea was it first? I think it was God's idea first, and then secular culture has changed it from blessing people and speaking to their identity to self-talk. But that is what is going on.
Speaker 1:As I bless my spirit, as I speak the word of God over my spirit. This is who you are and this is who God is for you. There is a restoration of my self-worth and there's a peace that isn't easily shaken, like the example I was just telling of. When that crisis hits, you don't have time to get ready, you just have to draw on the reservoirs you already have.
Speaker 1:I find that I have a greater sense of God's purpose for my life and also the bigger picture of what he's playing when I am blessing my spirit and being faithful. To do that, it's a lot less about me, which feels kind of weird because you're like but you're blessing your spirit. But yes, I'm blessing my spirit to focus on who God is and who I am in him, versus being inward and worried about the circumstances of things that are going on in my life. It obviously leads to deeper intimacy with the Father because I'm leaning more into the full love that he has for me and that I have for Him, and it also helps me live, like I said, is, if I do this on a regular basis and just make it part of one of the many practices of my Christian faith, my ability to live and stay in that place of alignment of spirit, soul and body is so much easier. I don't have to constantly be fighting to get back to alignment, I'm just able to live in that place.
Speaker 2:Yeah, living in that place means that you walk in freedom.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like, if you think about it, if you really know who you are, if your self-worth, if your identity has been restored, if you have a peace that hasn't been shaken, a sense of God's purpose all those things you were just talking about, Elizabeth, then you do, and all those things because you've got deeper intimacy with the Spirit, with the Father, you have an ability to live in that spirit, soul and body alignment. Then you know who you really are, you know your right place, your right standing and that is what allows you to walk in freedom, because you have enlarged that spiritual capacity. That's what we mean when we talk about that. You can see beyond just yourself and your woe is me and kind of that victim mindset, right. And that's when the guilt and the shame can fall away and you can speak that truth and you can bless your spirit and you can allow your spirit to be leading the rest of you.
Speaker 1:Yep, and I mean we've got several stories we could share of just ways that we've seen as we've blessed someone's spirit. It's even ministered to the soul and the body. A strong spirit brings peace to an anxious soul, and we've even had times where we were blessing someone's spirit simply to know this is who God is for you and this is who you are in him. And we've watched as physical healing has come to pass. I mean, for one in particular was a very dramatic story A member of our board, a friend of theirs, ended up in the ICU after choking on some food and he went up to the hospital with his you Are Blessed in the Names of God book and he just asked could I have a few minutes in his ICU room with him?
Speaker 1:Because they weren't sure kind of what was going to happen and how long had he been without oxygen and all these things, kind of what was going to happen and how long had he been without oxygen and all these things.
Speaker 1:And so he went into the room and he started to just read one of the blessings of this is who God is for you and this is who you are in him blessings that we have. And the guy woke up and came out of his coma and started trying to reach to pull the mouthpiece in his mouth out because he didn't want the breathing tube down his throat anymore. I mean it was very dramatic and I remember when our board member told me that story I was like well, I haven't had that happen, but that's cool. But I have had other instances where we have blessed someone and it was an instant but within the next days to weeks, all of a sudden the medical report comes back differently than what they were expecting it to come back and we've watched how God has used blessing the spirits of people to heal the body.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and from those examples, even right there, you can understand the truth of this reality that blessing your spirit is more than just an encouragement. Yeah, than just an encouragement. Yeah, like showing up in the ICU was, was an encouraging act to do, but it was so much deeper and bigger than that to to show up and bless someone. It's more than just encouragement. It's part of the strength that equals your days. Right, like this isn't strength equal your days. It's not just a title of a devotional book either, a year of prayer and blessings, it is. You stole that from somebody.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, the Bible the Bible, I was going to say. And Deuteronomy, right, and so, like in Deuteronomy 33, 25, moses blesses the tribes and he says as your days, so shall your strength be. That's God's promise. Whatever your day holds, he will give you the strength to match it. And that strength isn't just about surviving, because, if most of us are honest, that's kind of how we wake up every day, right, just I mean in our flesh, in our weakness and just without thinking about it, you know.
Speaker 2:But the truth is that strength is root-level strength. We talked a few weeks ago about the tree roots, right, and how deep they go and how much stronger they become in the midst of growth and storms. And God is deepening our roots, and that's the root level. Strength is what he's talking about here. As your day, so shall your strength be. So blessing your spirit nourishes the deepest part of you, the part that holds strong and holds fast when everything around you is shaking and tumultuous and unknown and scary. It'll hold you fast. Jeremiah 17, verses 7 and 8, says that the person who trusts in the Lord is like a tree planted by the water, with roots that go down deep, unafraid of drought or heat. That's what blessing does. It waters the roots of your spirit.
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely. And if you've ever walked through suffering or loss or uncertainty, then you know how critical it is to have something deeper than the circumstances you're in to anchor you down. And blessing your spirit connects you to your truest identity, your divine purpose and this unshakable hope that you're able to just stand in the midst of things that are feeling very insecure. You do have that anchor as you allow God to speak deeply to your spirit. Without deep roots, we're going to get tossed around by fear and confusion or despair. But when our spirit is strong, led by the Holy Spirit, we can walk through storms with stability and peace and this quiet confidence that comes from knowing who we are and who he is for us and also what he's promised he will do for us. And we may not see that victory immediately, but we know God's not going to abandon us. He will be there for us, he will be Emmanuel for us.
Speaker 2:Blessing your spirit or blessing the spirit of others, it doesn't take away those hard days.
Speaker 1:It sure doesn't.
Speaker 2:It doesn't take away the suffering or the loss or the uncertainty, but what it does do is it equips your spirit with the strength to meet those circumstances. It's like going to the gym, it's like exercising your mind. It's like exercising anything it needs to grow stronger. It's a discipline, it is part of the spiritual discipline life that comes with wanting to be more mature, wanting to be stronger, wanting to be more whole. And so when you bless your spirit, bless other people's spirit. It reminds your soul and your body I'm not alone, I'm loved. I was made for this. I can handle this, because God's spirit is right there with your spirit, and that's the kind of strength that the Father Heart is offering you. Not surface strength, but strength that's woven into your very being. It's fibers spirit first, soul and body following. And that's what this book is all about, and that's why we're breaking it down into this series that we're doing right now. I think this is part four of that series, but it's so that you can understand the power of blessing.
Speaker 2:I think a lot of us in the Christian world understand the power of prayer. We may wrestle with it. I mean, my story is I've wrestled with the power of prayer, but the power of blessing is something we just don't talk about a lot in certain circles, and so when we bring that into this conversation it gives us the ability, as believers, to look at something else from a biblical lens and really say I wanna take hold of that concept, I wanna take hold of that understanding of that truth, of that teaching, of that the history of blessing was in scripture. It's withstood the test of time and there's power to it to really leverage us into the depth of spiritual living. That is just really powerful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, it is, yeah, kimberly. That's something I think a lot of us in today's culture, when we have taught this, we do get a bit of pushback Like is this biblical? I don't know about this, but I think if we look back they didn't have to teach a whole lot about, because I mean, I don't have a verse, that Bible, and so many times it was just understood that this was part of the culture of the early Christian church. I mean, you think about Paul. If you read through his letters, several of his letters end with a blessing of the spirit of believers. The grace of the Lord, jesus Christ, be with your spirit. The Lord be with your spirit. The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ be with your spirit. That's in Galatians 6.18, 2 Timothy 4.22, and Philippians 4.23. And so he didn't stop to explain the concept of blessing the spirit when he said it, because the early church just got it, because it goes even farther back than that, doesn't it?
Speaker 2:It does. I think of shalom. That is a word that many of us have heard and that was a blessing. Sometimes I wish in a lot of ways I don't want to go back into that culture and in other ways I wish I could be in that culture and understand what was going on in that time frame, what was going on with the people of the Old Testament and the New Testament. And what we can try to understand is that this idea of blessing wasn't some, it isn't some like new idea. It is woven into the culture of the Bible. There's a lot of things there in the background and in the culture of scripture that we don't always understand because we have to look deeper to see it. So we see, like I mentioned that shalom idea, that was steeped in the culture and it was a blessing.
Speaker 2:Fathers blessing their children with a name. That was just part of culture. You didn't think about it, you didn't ask about it. It was just part of the culture. The patriarchs blessing their sons before they died. That was part of the culture. God blessing his people over and over again in scripture. Jesus blessing the disciples over and over again in Scripture. Jesus blessing the disciples over and over again in the New Testament.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it was just a way of life. It wasn't just a nice phrase at the end of a conversation, it was always very powerful and intentional. I mean, I even think about Jesus, who is man but also God, even he going to the temple on the eighth day to be blessed, and you know, and that is when his name was given, and so it is a deep and formational part of our Jewish and then Christian culture that probably didn't get explained. A whole lot about this is how you bless, because they got it, they understood it, but the Hebrew word to bless is baruch, which means a good word, and so when you bless someone, you're not flattering them, you're declaring God's truth over them and you're speaking a good word to them. And aren't we all just so hungry for a good?
Speaker 2:word, yeah. So, elizabeth, break down for just a minute. How do we do that? I mean, I actually the most common one is when people sneeze. Everyone just says bless you. Whether they're a believer or not, they're just like bless you. Okay, it's just a polite thing to do, but I think probably somewhere back in there someone sneezed and it was like bless you for a way to like send good vibes to you or something right. Right, send good vibes to you or something right To wish you with good health. I'm giving a good word to you to wish you good health. Now we are talking about a much deeper concept than that, to be clear. But talk for a minute about how we actually do this.
Speaker 1:So what we're doing when we're blessing someone is we're speaking to the Spirit that God has put in them, much like you can pray for someone, and you can pray for them out loud, or you can pray for them silently. You can pray with them when you're in front of the person, or you can pray for someone who's halfway around the world. The idea of blessing works the same, but I think you'll agree, kimberly, the most powerful way for someone to pray for me is where I can hear it. You know, when I hear someone praying for me on my behalf, it's so encouraging also to me. So I think the most powerful way to bless someone is in person or through an email. I send blessing texts to people a lot, but allowing them to hear what I'm blessing their spirit with and I'm not trying to change someone's behavior I am speaking to someone's spirit, not their behavior, and that is really important. Most of the time my blessings, I'm using scripture or using a promise of God and just saying you know, kimberly, I bless you to know, and then I say the scripture. Another important thing when we're blessing is to keep our own agenda out of it. You're not praying to God for them, you are speaking into their inner being with God's truth and we are not trying to say that blessing somehow replaces prayer. It's like having a hammer and a screwdriver Sometimes you need a screwdriver. And's like having a hammer and a screwdriver Sometimes you need a screwdriver and sometimes you need a hammer, but they're not fully interchangeable, and so this is just another tool for our toolbox. Just an example of a blessing would be you can either say I bless your spirit, or, if some people feel uncomfortable using I bless, like it's somehow making us important.
Speaker 1:So other people say be blessed. So I bless you to know that you are a masterpiece, fearfully and wonderfully made. That is Psalm 139, 14. Or just, you don't even have to say I bless or be blessed. You could just look at someone and just say to them you are chosen, beloved and filled with purpose. And just say to them you are chosen, beloved and filled with purpose. That is Ephesians 1, 4 to 5. So if you've got a friend who's struggling, or like Kimberly, I am blessing you to remember that you are chosen, beloved and filled with purpose. I bless you to walk in the strength of your identity in Christ. Very simple thing.
Speaker 1:So blessing is not about controlling. It's about releasing truth and reminding of each other of the truth Ephesians 3.16 says be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner, being reminded of, into the inmost parts of our own lives and each other, because you can bless your own spirit. We just saw that in Psalm 42. David said his own spirit was talking to his own soul. So you can use the truth of God's word to bless your own spirit.
Speaker 1:Some people can do that. Some people feel a little weird doing that. You can obviously bless the spirits of other people feel a little weird doing that. You can obviously bless the spirits of other people. I have blessed the spirits of both believers and non-believers, because everyone's got a spirit and whether they are a follower of Christ or not, they were handcrafted by God and they are special and they are designed by him for a unique purpose. All of that is true. Now our hope is that they would come into a relationship with Jesus. But even the lady that checked me out at Walmart today, I can say a good word to her and speak something deep about who she is as a person, blessing her spirit and trying to awaken her spirit. To do that One of the easiest ways I know how to bless someone if you want to make sure you're like hey, I don't want to do anything to manipulate, I don't want to put my own opinion here is I bless your spirit to turn and receive from Father, son and Holy Spirit everything that you need to receive, and that is.
Speaker 1:I base that kind of off of the very familiar passage out of Numbers where it says the Lord bless you and keep you. May the Lord make his face shine upon you. And so sometimes I just bless someone's spirit to turn and receive the light of the face of their father. You can't go wrong with that. And so it doesn't have to be big, it doesn't have to be long, it doesn't even have to be religious. You can use Jesus' words if it's a believer friend of yours have to be religious. You can use Jesus' words if it's a believer friend of yours. But you can also speak a good word to someone without ever using the word Jesus in the phrase yeah.
Speaker 2:I was just thinking you could say to someone I bless you to understand and be able to walk through all the emotions that you're having for your family right now. Yeah, I mean, that's something that they may not be ready to receive a word from God or a prayer from you but you can bless them with something simple like that. There may be people in your life that if you asked them, can I pray for you, they might say no, but we have seen that rarely will someone refuse a good word or a good blessing and, like you said, it doesn't have to be overly religious. But all of us struggle with feeling unworthy, with carrying shame, with not understanding our authority in Christ or our identity in Christ, and so our words, when they're rooted in truth and love, may be the spark that they need to awaken their spirit into the rightful place. So it could be that our blessing to someone may be the first time that they hear what God really thinks of them, and I think that's a powerful ministry.
Speaker 2:Like I've worked with a lot of students that, as they you know, you and I both have worked with a lot of students and as they grow up over the years, sometimes they're walking through a journey where they're not sure what they want to have anything to do with God just yet.
Speaker 2:You know and I want to continue to bless them I hold a place in their life where I have had a spiritual influence over their life, and so if I continue to have influence in their life, I don't want to not have a spiritual influence just because they don't want to be in a spiritual place, and so they may not be ready for me to pray for them, but they may be ready to receive me saying to them I bless that you will be able to remember how deeply loved you are. Bless you to know that you are a man created in the image of God, if they're ready to hear that. Or I bless you to know that you are a woman who is incredibly loved and capable. You know, there are so many words of good words and blessings, and from our heart those are coming to a place to speak deep intention and identity to their spirit, and I think that's what's powerful.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think a lot of friends of ours, listeners of this podcast, may have children that are not following after God right now, and that's a very heartbreaking situation to watch. But I've just encouraged them to keep saying those good words and again, like you said, kimberly, if they don't want to hear Jesus in it, you don't put Jesus in it. There's a thousand different ways you can speak the truth of identity to them without ever using the words Father, son or Holy Spirit in the blessing. And what you're also doing is you're planting seeds in their hearts and you're showing you're a safe place to come. You are calling forth who I really am. You're loving me for who I am and where I am right now. You're not breaking relationship with me because I'm not behaving the way you want me to. When it comes time and there will be a time when they do want to come running home or they're in a crisis and they need someone they're going to be able to come to you because you have been a safe person who has been a steady influence with them, knowing or not knowing, like sometimes I'm blessing the spirits of family members and friends and they don't even know I'm doing it. Just like you can pray silently or pray for someone and they don't know you're praying.
Speaker 1:And I know when I go out in public I am pretty much the world's largest introvert, and so the idea of going up to someone I don't know and saying something out loud to them totally freaks me out. I have done it when I feel God telling me to do so. But I am much more likely to have passed you in a store and I'm blessing you as I'm walking past you, and you will never have any idea that I've done that. In some ways I feel like a secret agent undercover. So as I'm out and about doing, you know, whatever you got to do to get the groceries bought and the errands run, I'm doing that. The other main one that I do is, anytime I hear any type of siren fire truck, ambulance, emt, whatever I immediately start blessing. I don't know who's in trouble or where, but the driver of that vehicle and all the other, his team member, his or her team members, and then the person and the family affected by whatever's going on. That I just.
Speaker 1:I asked for that blessing of Shalom that you talked about, kimberly, that the blessing of Shalom would just come over everyone involved in that situation. So it just is about having this lifestyle where you just kind of bring Jesus along with you in your day and are kind of always looking around to say who can I give a good word to, who can I bless? And so I think, as we do, that our own spirit gets strengthened as we focus on blessing others. But the other thing I have found when I'm in situations where people have blessed me say, I'm in the midst of a crisis and I text my friends we actually, kimberly and I, are part of a text group that got fired off over the weekend because there were several of our friends that had some really difficult things going on and I was amazed to watch over and over the blessing texts that kept going back and forth and how many times I heard them say I'm so glad we understand this.
Speaker 1:I don't know where I would be if I didn't understand how to get my spirit, soul and body in alignment with Father, son and Holy Spirit in the midst of this. And so there is this as we bless our spirit and live from that place, it allows our perspective to shift away from our understanding to God's understanding. Our faith gets deepened and a joy and peace expand in our life and we learn to live not for God, but with Him. It's about this, it's a deepening of the relationship. Whereas, like I said, okay, jesus, we're going in Walmart, who are we going to bless today? And so God gets invited along into more of the daily, normal, mundane things that sometimes I forget to bring God along with me. Blessing other people while I'm out in public is a great way to remind Him that he's always with me.
Speaker 2:When we live with our spirits strengthened, we also worship more freely. I think we can trust God more easily. It doesn't mean that it's easy, but it's more easily, and we can talk with God more intimately, more deeply, and the fruit of living with your spirit in sync with the Father looks like all of these things and as you were just talking, elizabeth, I shared this with you before we started recording. There's a song that has been very powerful and meaningful in my life as an encouragement, but I think it's like we said earlier, it's not just an encouragement.
Speaker 2:It speaks deeply to my spirit and you can go look it up. It's an older song called the Blessing by John Waller. But what he says in there just what you were talking about a minute ago, talking about people who, the power that we have with blessing other people, power that we have with blessing ourselves there's a couple of lines in there. He says let it be said of us by the ones we leave behind that we live to be a blessing for life. He says let it be said of us that our legacy is blessing for life. And he says you being God, you set life and you set death before us. This day we have a choice. Every blessing and every curse is a choice. Will you choose to be a blessing for life? And he goes on and he says for your kingdom, for your children, for the sake of every nation, let it be said of us that we chose to be a blessing for life.
Speaker 2:And I think the power of recognizing that I can pray behind the scenes. I can often pray with someone, but there's so many people that I'm not going to have the opportunity to pray with. I can pray for them and that's powerful, but there's a lot of people I'm with that I can bless. Like you said, I have the opportunity to bless them quietly because my spirit can speak to their spirit, and I don't understand that.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Like that goes in that box of like the firmament of understanding in the spiritual realm, right, like there's so many scriptures speak to, like the things in the spiritual realm that we can't understand. But I know the power of being with someone and speaking life to them.
Speaker 2:I know the power of being with someone and speaking life to them, and the life for me comes from the heart of knowing Jesus and longing for them to know who God made them to be and longing to see them step into that, and so it is not at all about us trying to fix someone, as you've said.
Speaker 2:It's about us watering the seeds that God's already planted. We have to remember that the verse in the New Testament talks about Apollos did his job, paul did his job and God made it grow right. We're part of something bigger than we're ever going to know, and so am I going to choose to be a blessing today, am I going to choose for my words to speak blessing rather than curse rather than death? And I'll be the first to say I'm very guilty of that as a critical person, but I have a spirit that's so much bigger than that in me, and if I can live and remember to live from who God has called me to be, like you said, my perspective will shift, my faith will deepen, my joy and my peace will expand. And I'm not living for God, I'm living with Him in step with Him.
Speaker 1:So.
Speaker 2:I'm not trying to fix someone, I'm not trying to make something better, I'm trying to just be, and it's a ministry of love, which is what I think. I think that's who Jesus was seeking to be when he lived out his years on this earth, walking among the disciples in his years of ministry. Even right, like it was, just let me walk around and bless people and be offering life and love to people so that they can see my Father and all that he's done for them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and Kimberly, a few minutes ago you used a phrase that I loved that when you said it was talking about getting your spirit in sync with the Father. We often talk about the word alignment a lot, but I like that word in sync because I immediately am thinking of you and I. We were talking right before we started recording as well that you know, you have your, you had your speaker on and you had your phone synced to your speaker and, like so much of our technology right now is about syncing, you know, my, my phone to my car or you know to a speaker or different types of ways to use technology and the effortless communication that goes on between the two pieces of equipment, right when it's in sync, but when it's not in sync, nothing's going to play, and so we need to do the practical, applicational things that we can do, to do all that we can to make sure that we're fully in sync with Father, son and Holy Spirit, and so I think that starts with our own spirit. I think, before we even start trying to bless the spirits of other people, we need to start with ourselves, so as we're trying to stay in sync with the Father or in alignment with Father, son and Holy Spirit. I think there's some very practical things that we can suggest as you get started. The first is to start with your own spirit. Before we start trying to bless the spirit of others.
Speaker 1:There's a lot of our own healing that we need to have happen, and so for some people, they can read a blessing and receive it for themselves. Other people need to hear someone else blessing them, and that's more just a personality style than anything else, but I do know on our website we have both available. We have books that you can purchase. Blessings for Life, daily Spirit Blessings and you Are Blessed in the Names of God are all available. We have books that you can purchase. Blessings for Life, daily Spirit Blessings and you Are Blessed in the Names of God are all available and those are scripture-based blessings that you can speak over your own spirit or the spirits of others. But we also have available on this podcast. Every Tuesday we release a short devotional and sometimes those are blessings that we are reading over them. So you go back through our podcast and find those, or on our website. We also have for purchase about 60 blessings taken from your blessed.
Speaker 1:I'm the one reading them, but you could listen to a blessing a day and allow God to speak to you through that blessing as a way of building up your own spirit in your own reservoir first. You can then read blessings out loud to friends and family, because even as you're blessing someone else, you are also being blessed as you're reading that and you're hearing the truth of God's word. But you just ask the Holy Spirit what truth you need to hear or what someone else needs to hear. There are many other ways to bless and nourish your spirit. Kimberly just mentioned one is there's certain worship psalms that may just speak very deeply to you. So make it a practice to listen to those types of psalms that speak deeply to your spirit. For a season I also had the book of Psalms on an audio recording and I would listen to the Psalms and just allow the Word of God to speak to my spirit. So there's several different ways that you can bless your spirit and then, out of the overflow of that, bless the spirits of others.
Speaker 2:So we want to close by blessing your spirit. Now, Beloved Spirit, be blessed in the name of the Father who formed you with joy. Be blessed to know you are deeply loved, fully accepted and forever secure. Be blessed to rise up into your place of authority under the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1:Be blessed with strength in your inner being, peace that passes, understanding and joy that overflows. Be blessed to walk in harmony with your soul and body as the Spirit of God leads you in all truth. Be filled with divine purpose, creativity and courage. Be strengthened in your inner being with the power of the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 2:May your roots go down deep into the love of Christ so that even in dry and difficult seasons you remain unshaken. May you draw living water from the well of God's presence. May you draw living water from the well of God's presence. Be blessed to know that your Father sees your day and he is giving you strength exactly tailored to what you need.
Speaker 1:May you be like a tree planted by streams of water steady, nourished and fruitful in every season. Be blessed to live from a place of rest and rootedness, even when the world around you feels unstable. Remember who you are chosen, empowered and equipped. Your spirit was created to lead, not to cower. Be blessed with courage, endurance and the kind of peace that doesn't make sense because it comes from God alone. Be blessed with strength that equals your days, knowing that God is your portion, your protector and your ever-present help. Be blessed in the name of Father, son and Holy Spirit, your sustainer, your shepherd and your guide. And Holy Spirit, your sustainer, your shepherd and your guide. I want to thank you for listening to the Father's Business Podcast.
Speaker 2:This devotional is taken from Strength to Equal your Days. This is our latest resource. It is a 365-day devotional. You can purchase a copy at wwwTheFathersBusinesscom. Thank you for listening to this devotional. You can find an archive of devotionals and other podcasts on our website. Also, this podcast is made possible through donations from people like you. To donate, click on the Donate tab on our website. Again, our website is wwwTheFathersBusinesscom.
