Can i give a blessing

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You invoke God on their behalf to support the good that you will for them. This is the nature of blessing. It is what we are to receive from God and then give to another. Now we need to deepen that just a little bit, because it isn't just a verbal performance.

It isn't "bless you" said through gritted teeth. It's a generous outpouring of our whole being into blessing the other person. So, among other things, you don't want to hurry a blessing.

It becomes a habit that we say thoughtlessly, "God bless. That is something we need to be thoughtful about. We don't just rattle off a blessing. It's a profoundly personal and powerful act. In Numbers —26, we find the great Aaronic blessing. This is the blessing Moses instructed his brother, Aaron, to place on the people of Israel. Thank God for it! When you try to improve on it, you realize you are not going to make much headway. God build around you his safekeeping. The blood of Jesus and the Spirit of Christ be over you and keep you.

This is very intimate and can be threatening. I've done this with groups where people broke out in tears and broke out in laughter because it touched so deeply. Emphasize you. He said that the people among whom he worked would then tend to assign too much importance to him as mediator of the blessing. To avoid that, he sometimes pronounces the blessing with uplifted hands and sometimes as office bearer without lifting them.

The purpose is to point the people always to the Word of the speaking and blessing God himself. In the service of worship we are fed, together with the congregation of the Lord, with the Word of God, by Jesus Christ himself. In that way I begin to see what it means that God wants to be my God. That is essential for the way in which the Bible speaks about the blessing. When I make that my own, I will see what it means to live under the blessing of the Lord.

In that way I can recognize that blessing in my everyday life. But I also think about the fact that the Word points out a direction for my life that becomes apparent in the gathering of the congregation.

In that way I can truly experience that he makes my paths straight when I know him in all my ways. But at the same time I realize that this can be a great danger and can become a curse.

If my entire life is not focused on God, all the spiritual and material riches are turned into a curse. That is why always focusing again on the origin of the blessing is of the greatest importance. The blessing gives us a promise, but also poses a clear question: Is the Lord, who dispenses the blessing, truly the focus of our life?

May believers bless each other? After studying the biblical data, the answer is simply: it depends on how a person understands the blessing. The believer who is connected to Jesus can even go further. Undoubtedly, the believers in the first Christian church greeted each other in that way. Such words would have accompanied the encouragement given to the members of the church to greet each other.

The gesture of laying on of hands is not mentioned in this context. That is reserved for a specific blessing of a special character. Twice Paul speaks of the manner in which Timothy was commissioned as office bearer to the Lord.

That was accompanied by the laying on of hands, in which Paul also participated 1 Tim. In the Jewish tradition, the gesture of laying on of hands is more common. It demonstrates the desire to pass something on and makes the closeness tangible. Thus, for example, Jewish parents lay their hands on their children on the eve of the Sabbath, when they bless them.

It is interesting to listen to the words of the blessing. It has the form of a prayer, just like the blessings we find in the Bible. For a boy the blessing is: God make you like Ephraim and Manasseh. This harks back to the prophetic words of Genesis , which says that in the future Israel will pronounce the blessing with these words. No matter how one appreciates the laying on of hands, it will be apparent that all the forms of blessing we discussed consist of a wish and a prayer for the blessing that only the Lord himself can give.

That applies to the Bible and also for the Jews. And it is no different for us today. The blessing derives its meaning from the promise of God. A promise can never be made dependent upon a blessing. It is always the other way round. That is never the case. In light of what we have just discussed, I have great difficulty with the manner in which the blessing is given by some people.

If I give my neighbour a blessing in the form of a specific promise, that raises enormous expectations. I know and have experienced that the Lord can also perform miracles today and can fulfill specific hopes. But the Bible does not give us any occasion to raise such expectations, as if we were entitled to bless each other with something specific.

A form such as, I bless you with the love of God , or a similar expression does not appear in the Bible. A person who blesses does no more than a person who prays for a blessing and wishes it on another person. The form that befits it is the Lord bless you. God himself is the subject.

He dispenses the blessing. It would be totally wrong for a person to suppose that she can dispense of the blessing. It is wrong not only about the blessing itself, but it can also distort mutual relationships. If a father blesses his child daily, it is possible that the father exercises a spiritual power over the child that goes beyond the relationships described in Ephesians 6. The child can feel himself spiritually dependent upon his parents and the danger of manipulation is then quite real.

The formulation, I bless you with. Intrinsically, that conflicts with what the Bible teaches about the blessing. And when by means of a laying on of hands the suggestion is raised that there is an actual transference of power via the laying on of hands, you have crossed the boundary into the magical arts in an unbiblical manner. In the religions that surrounded Israel, a blessing or a curse could work magic as an impersonal power.

That will become apparent in the manner in which I deal with prosperity and adversity, with gifts and shortcomings. The blessing will become apparent not only in prosperity; that would give a distorted image of life with God.

It is important that we show that the strength of our lives does not lie in our glory, but in the grace that I experience especially in weakness. The blessing does not turn us into different people, but into people with a different perspective. That is the first thing the Bible points to in the context of passing on a blessing. Moreover, in the congregation I can also be a blessing for others by praying for a blessing and to point them to the blessing.

So long as it is really understood that this is not something over and above what God has promised, but refers to and is derived from it. The blessing can never go further than what God has promised. The gesture of laying on of hands makes that promise visible and nearer to us. In the blessing, we pray to God for the fulfillment of his promise and, at the same time, the congregation is assured that God will indeed fulfill it.

That is why we are always asked to receive the blessing with a believing heart e. The blessing can also have significance outside the church services. Only he dispenses his blessing. If this biblical concept is not really understood, there is a real danger that a distinct act of blessing can be interpreted as a kind of magical act.

Such an act works the exact opposite of what the blessing means. And then God is blessed for his blessing. Can you state in one sentence what the blessing of God means for you? Discuss the differences in emphasis and experience that may exist between the several answers. Do you experience a difference between the blessing pronounced at the end of a church service and the blessing pronounced on you directly by another person?

If so, can you explain exactly what that difference is? Background: Blessing Each Other? Blessing Each Other? I Bless You With You must have JavaScript enabled to use this form. If you're a human, don't change the following field Enter your name Your first name. Your name.