Did you bless the Lord? (First part)
Verse of the day: Deuteronomy 8:10 “When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you”
I’ve never heard anyone who does not want to be blessed. Even those who do not believe in God manifest a deep desire to be blessed one way or the other. Blessing someone means making him happy whether in opening a door to his needs or in doing what his heart needs. God has many ways to show his love toward his people by blessings them with all kind of blessings and even the new testament continues to talk about blessings.
As you have already guessed, just by reading the title of this teaching, we will not talk about God’s blessing toward his people but the opposite. We will only talk about human blessing toward God. This may sound strange but the bible recommends us to also bless the Lord. The verse of the day (Deuteronomy 8:10) says that if you have eaten and are satisfied, you are supposed to bless the Lord for all He has given you.
Like I often say, nobody can pretend to do not have anything to bless the Lord for. Maybe you are not satisfied concerning money but you are in good health with no pain on your body! You may be in a poor country or family but your name is written in the book of life and a nice place is waiting for you in heaven according to Jesus’ promise (John 14:2).
All the people who complain of having nothing to thank the Lord are those who see everything in the flesh and cannot open their spiritual eyes. The bible encourages us to set our minds on things above and not on earthly things (Colossians 3:2). It’s this verse that answers the question of the teaching” “Did you bless the Lord?” The answer is very simple: Only those who set their minds on things above are able to bless the Lord and bless Him every day with no condition because if we are in Christ, we are satisfied of God’s blessings and He wants us to bless Him back.
We are spiritually blessed every day but we need to have spiritual eyes to notice it. Those who set their minds on earthly things are not able to bless the Lord every day because earthly things are naturally unstable.
If your blessing toward the Lord depends on earthly things, you understand that there will be many timeouts or time of complaining.
In the second part, we will dig in this thought in order to understand how to develop an attitude of always blessing the Lord.
Chris Ndikumana
Did you bless the Lord? (Part 2)
Verse of the day: Colossians 3:2 “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things”
Like I said in the first part, only those who set their minds on things above are able to bless the Lord and bless Him every day.
Many people (including Christians) prefer to give thanks to God for the earthly blessings like houses, money, a good job, children, a good wife, a good husband…and it’s good to give thanks because all those good things truly come from God but they are not a strong foundation to guarantee a constant praise. A person who’s rich today may be in need next year and the good social situation that pushes you to bless God can change according circumstances. If then earthly blessings are the source of your motivation to bless the Lord, today you would bless Him and tomorrow you will be complaining at the point that you would already have forgotten what He has already done in your life.
The only way you can always bless the Lord is to set your mind on things above which means spiritual things. To set your mind on spiritual things means taking time to meditate on God’s goodness and greatness in considering His daily work for us that occurs in the spiritual world.
Thinking that there is an angel that follows me wherever I go to protect me is a good reason for me to bless the Lord every day. If the Lord could open your spiritual eyes for just five minutes to show you how powerful is the spiritual fight in your favor, you would thank Him 24 hours a day. While your earthly eyes are showing you that all is finished for you, your spiritual eyes can show you that the solution is on the way because God is in control and He is your Father. As a matter of fact, He cannot forsake you because of his great love. That’s why a sacrifice of praise should come out of you. A Christian is supposed to praise God as long as he remembers that Jesus defeated the devil and He is seated on the right hand of the Father.
Spiritual eyes are always inspired by the word of God which is our sword (Ephesians 6:17). They show us the source of everything we see in the physical world because everything starts from the spiritual world. These are the kind of meditations that would push you to say like David: “I will bless the Lord at all times; his praise shall continually be in my mouth” (Psalms 34:1)
Let’s pray in asking the Holy-Spirit to make us a source of blessings and not a source of complaining.
In the third part, I will talk about our body as an instrument to bless the Lord
Chris Ndikumana
Did you bless the Lord? (part 3)
Verse of the day: Romans 12:1 “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship”
The verse of the day holds many revelations at the same time. First, it urges us to offer our body as a living sacrifice. I wonder whether it happens to you to offer your body to God as a sacrifice because we are not talking about the spiritual body but the physical one. Giving your body as a sacrifice means to accept to kill something that would please the flesh in order to bless the Lord.
The verse of the day clearly precise that we don’t just have to give a sacrifice but the sacrifice has to be a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God. The sacrifice that matches those three conditions will be called (according to the verse of the day): “A proper worship”. Other translations talk about it as a “Spiritual Act of worship”. We all know that an act of worship is normally done spiritually but this time we are learning about an act of worship done through our physical body.
Let’s separately talk about the three conditions for a worship to be proper:
a. The body has to be a living sacrifice
The sacrifice is defined as a willing abnegation of the body. Once something is sacrificed, it cannot be claimed or protected because when it is sacrificed, it does no longer belong to us. If we sacrifice our body for God, it means that we give it up in order to please Him. In the Old Testament, animals were killed but it wasn’t any kind of animal because the value of sacrifice matched with the value of the animal for the person who gives the sacrifice. Nobody could offer a dead animal. The animal had to be alive before being slaughtered by the priests. God rebuked those who offered blind, lame or diseased animals (Malachi 1:8)
Today we are in the New Testament and God does not ask us to sacrifice animals but He asks us to sacrifice our bodies. To sacrifice your body means making it available to pray and serve God only to obey and please Him.
Remember that the sacrifice needs to be alive, which means that you don’t necessary have to pray or serve God only when you feel like doing it. You don’t have to wait for the convenient or comfortable time in order to worship your God otherwise we wouldn’t talk about a living sacrifice.
When, in the morning, you don’t feel like leaving the bed for prayer, that’s exactly the same situation when a ram refused to move forward to be slaughtered. It’s the animal’s scream that valued the sacrifice. If you can move forward and enter in prayer despite of the flesh resistance, you would be blessing Him. To be continued in the fourth part.
Chris Ndikumana
Did you bless the Lord? (Part 4)
Verse of the day: Romans 12:1 “Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship”
In the third part, I talked about the first condition (a) of the body to be a proper worship and today I’ll talk about the second and the third conditions:
b. The body has to be a holy sacrifice
A holy sacrifice means a sacrifice set apart or consecrated to God. For a longtime I always thought that God is only interested in my spirit but I finally understood that even my body counts. A body cannot be offered as a holy sacrifice for God on one side and be used to please the flesh on the other side. A holy body is not used for anything because if it’s sacrificed for God in order to honor Him. I often hear those who say: “it’s my body and I do from it whatever I want”… but the bible tells us that our body is the temple of the Holy-Spirit (1 Cor 6:19). The bible also says: “May God himself, the God of peace, sanctify you through and through. May your whole spirit, soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ. The one who calls you is faithful, and he will do it” (1 Thess 5:23). Therefore, for a worship to be proper, the body has to be sanctified.
c. The body has to be a sacrifice pleasing to God.
According to the same verse of the day (Rom 12:1), for a worship to be reasonable, the sacrifice has to be pleasing to God. Like I said, in other versions, the worship is translated as a spiritual act of worship. Every time you enter in prayer, your action is considered as an act of worship before God. However, further in the book of Hebrews, the nature of the act of worship is well described: It is said: “…Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe” (Hebrews 12:28).
The act has to be an act that is pleasing Him and if the act pleases Him, it means that the sacrifice pleases Him as well.
The big question is to know how is the sacrifice that pleases Him? The answer is in the same verse (Heb 12:28): The sacrifice that pleasing to God is followed by reverence and awe. We cannot pretend to bless the Lord without reverence and awe. We may be weak in some area but above all, God wants to see awe in us.
In the fifth part, we will discover another fundamental condition to be able to always bless the Lord.
Chris Ndikumana
Did you bless the Lord? (Part 5)
Verse of the day: Matthew 3:17 “And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.”
Every parent will tell you that he equally loves all his children but in reality there is a child that blesses him more than others. All his children are loved but in the parent’s heart there is a hidden voice that says: “this is my son (daughter), whom I love”. Generally, a child who pleases his parent is the one who obeys the most. No matter how beautiful or lovely the child may be, as long as he (she) is not obedient, he (she) cannot bless his (her) parents.
God also feels the same regarding His children; He is always blessed by those who obey Him more than those who only worship or serve Him. Someone can spend more time in praise and worship without obeying the Lord. All you can do in order to please the Lord is useless as long as you don’t obey His word. The bible clearly says that obedience is better than sacrifices (1 Samuel 15:22).
The verse of the day (Matt 3:17) shows us how Jesus blessed the heart of God. Right after being baptized by John the Baptist, a voice came out of heavens to say: “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased”. God had much affection for Jesus because of His total obedience. Of course God has affection for us because of Jesus but we cannot pretend to bless Him in persevering in disobedience. All the qualities you may have to God’s eyes should come after obedience. A Christian who always blesses the Lord is the one who only wants to bless Him and nothing else than blessing Him. It’s the one who wakes up in the morning and tells God: “I’m totally available for you”.
When God gives or reveals His position, He wants an instant execution with no discussion or reasoning. He wants us to react like Abraham whom He asked to sacrifice his unique son he loved the most while the promise had said that He would make a great nation through Him (Genesis 21:12). Abraham could discuss with God in asking him: “How can you ask me to sacrifice my unique son while you told me that you will make a great nation through him?”
But Abraham feared God and more, he totally trusted Him. He deeply knew that God cannot say something without thinking about it. Hard times are also an opportunity to bless the Lord in manifesting our trust despite of the terrible situation. Trust seriously touches the heart of God.
In the sixth part, I will conclude in talking about the condition to be blessed by the Lord
Chris Ndikumana
Did you bless the Lord? (Part 6)
Verse of the day: Genesis 27:4 “Prepare me the kind of tasty food I like and bring it to me to eat, so that I may give you my blessing before I die”
The verse of the day tells us about Isaac who before dying informed his son Esau that the time to bless him has come and he was clear about the condition before blessing him; He asked him to bring him food before blessing him. It doesn’t mean that Isaac didn’t have food to eat because he was normally served by his wife or his servants according to his culture, but he demanded to be served by his son in order to bless him back. This verse clearly manifests God’s character. He wants to bless us but requires a simple condition: “Bless me first so that I may bless you back”
If you read this teaching from the beginning, you understood that we can bless the Lord in many ways but this time we will discover that he doesn’t only wants to be blessed but he prefers to be blessed before blessing us. At this point, you understand that if you can always bless the Lord, you will naturally always be blessed by him.
Before closing, let’s talk about King David. He blessed the Lord a lot and took advantage of his power as a king to influence all the assembly to bless the Lord. Let’s study the following verse “Then David said to the whole assembly, “Then David said to all the assembly, “Now bless the LORD your God.” So all the assembly blessed the LORD God of their fathers, and bowed their heads and prostrated themselves before the LORD and the king” (1 CHR 29:20). David asked all the community to bless their God. The verse shows us how they blessed the Lord. They bowed down, prostrating themselves before the Lord. By this we understand that bowing down and prostrating before the Lord is an act of worship that blesses Him.
In fact, what matters is not bowing down or prostrating, but it’s all about the spirit we do it with. God wants us to bow down in our hearts to bless him. He wants us to reach the level where we can say like Jesus: “Father, not my will, but Yours” (Luke 22:42). I insist on this because our will is not necessary God’s will but we should develop an attitude in which our will must die in order to give in to God’s will. We will never be able to always bless the Lord as long as we cling on our own position. If you want to bless the Lord, you must learn to give up something in order to receive from Him.
I bless you all in the name of Jesus
Chris Ndikumana
