The Blessing Will Overtake You!

Deuteronomy 28:2 "And the Blessing shall come upon you and overtake you if you heed the voice of the Lord your God."

So what is the Blessing? The Blessing is anything good. So anything good that has happened to you or that has been given to you. As I look back on my life I see just how Blessed I truly am. I was raised in a Christian home, in a nice house, I was fortunate enough to have never been to public school, I was able to complete to associate degrees debt free, and I have a nice car. I am Blessed! I am thankful to God for all his many Blessings in my life.

Psalm 103:1-5 (NKJV) "Bless the Lord, O my soul; And all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, And forget not all His benefits: Who forgives all your iniquities, Who heals all your diseases, Who redeems your life from destruction, Who crowns you with loving-kindness and tender mercies, Who satisfies your mouth with good things, So that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s."

 I love these verse for so many reasons. First of all worshiping Him is always a great time and it always renews my soul and spirit.  Also letting Him know I will never forget His benefits. His grace and favor abound everyday. It says He forgives me, heals me, redeems my life from destruction, He crowns me with loving kindness and tender mercies, He satisfies my mouth with good things, and He renews my youth like eagles. 

2 Peter 1:3 (AMP) "For His divine power has bestowed upon us all things that [are requisite and suited] to life and godliness, through the [full, personal] knowledge of Him Who called us by and to His own glory and excellence (virtue)."

  

He has bestowed good things upon me, things that will bring glory to Him. He likes to give us things that we enjoy. You may enjoy motorcycles or cars. God wants to give those things to you so you can enjoy them. I think we can bring glory to God with these things. For instance with the motorcycle you can start a riding group that goes and ministers to people. We just must make sure God gets the glory for everything. He has equipped me to do those things He has called me to do as well. I love that even though I don't feel like I am worthy of something, if He has called me He has given me the ability to do the thing.

Psalm 84:11 (NKJV) "For the Lord God is a sun and shield; The Lord will give grace and glory; No good thing will He withhold From those who walk uprightly."

You can't really have a favorite verse in Psalm but this one is up there towards the top. He is my light and my shield (my protector). He will always protect me as long as I am walking with Him. This is such an awesome promise! He said He would give grace (favor) and glory to me. He will not withhold any good thing from me if I am walking with Him. This is a promise worth shouting about! We should get so excited about this! He promises us every good thing! That means health of body, soul, and mind. That means every good thing here on earth. I love this statement from George Pearsons, "'All These Blessings' include everything it will take to empower us to succeed and prosper in everything we do."  

 Look at this version of Deuteronomy 28:2 (MSG) "All these Blessings will come down on you." He is saying they WILL come on you! 

Ezekiel 34:25-27 "And I will confirm with them a covenant of peace and will cause the evil beasts to cease out of the land, and [My people] shall dwell safely in the wilderness, desert, or pastureland and sleep [confidently] in the woods. [Ps. 127:2b; Isa. 11:6-9; John 14:27; 16:33.] And I will make them and the places round about My hill a blessing, and I will cause the showers to come down in their season; there shall be showers of blessing [of good insured by God's favor]. And the tree of the field shall yield its fruit and the earth shall yield its increase; and [My people] shall be secure in their land, and they shall be confident and know (understand and realize) that I am the Lord, when I have broken the bars of their yoke and have delivered them out of the hand of those who made slaves of them."

 These verses tell so much about the goodness of God. "There shall be showers of Blessing" The word shower in Hebrew means to pour down and rain violently and in the Merriam-Webster dictionary it means a falling of things from the air in thick succession in great and large quantities. Now that is something that gets me excited! Blessings will come to me quickly and in great quantity! I really want you to wrap your head around this one. God want to prosper you in everything and He wants you to be Blessed in everything you do. He is your daddy and He wants to give you things everyday just as you would want to give your child something. Some days it may be little things that make you smile and other days He might give you big things that make you shout! HE WANTS TO BLESS YOU!

Malachi 3:10 "Bring all the tithes (the whole tenth of your income) into the storehouse, that there may be food in My house, and prove Me now by it, says the Lord of hosts, if I will not open the windows of heaven for you and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it. [Mal. 2:2.]"

I really love this verse. The first time I ever read it I got really excited about it. He is basically daring you to trust Him with your money. I could probably do a whole blog post on Malachi 3 but I will save that for another day. This verse tells us How He will open the floodgates of Heaven. How would you like that to happen? I know I would love that to happen. The CEV says "I will open the windows of heaven and flood you with Blessing after Blessing." I want that! I want Him to pour out Blessing after Blessing on me straight from Heaven! 

I have never read what the meaning of overtake you in Hebrew is. It means take over your life, overwhelm you, engulf you, pile up on you, cover you over and load you up with an an excessive amount, avalanche, heap, swamp, overflow, flood. I was blown away by this meaning. This is what I want in my life! I want Jesus all over me and engulfing me. He wants to engulf me in Blessings. One story that comes to mind is the story of Peter in Luke 5:6-9 (NLT). He brought in a boat sinking load of fish. God Blessed Peter with an overwhelming amount of fish. One thing about this story is that God gave Peter directions and Peter had to obey to get his Blessing. 

The last part of Deuteronomy 28:2 says, "If you obey the voice of the Lord your God."(ESV) Just like Peter had to obey we must obey as well. The Blessing can only manifest when we obey. You know Peter probably didn't want to go back out after fishing all day long and catching nothing, BUT when Jesus said go, Peter went and the Blessing overtook him. I love this statement, "Obedience to His voice opens the door for the Blessing to overtake us." The Blessing will always supply the best. I want to always have the best so I must always listen to the voice of the Lord. 

Isaiah 1:19 (NIV) "If you are willing and obedient, you will eat the good things of the land" 

I have already said this once but I want you to get it! God is your father and He wants to give you His best! As a parent don't you want to give your child the best? Well He wants to do the same for you! He loves you so much He want to give you things, the Best things! We must believe that! 

Once again I want to leave you with an awesome statement from Gloria Copeland.

"To obey what He says, you have to Know what He says and receive it."

So get in the Word today and find out what He has for you!! 

You can go here for more study notes and here to listen to the two weeks worth of broadcasts.

The Blessing Will Set You on High

So I told you I might do several blog posts on The Blessing found in Deuteronomy 28:1-14. Well I have decided that doing that would be a good idea for both you and me! We can learn together. I want nothing more than for myself and other to be living in The Blessing. I want to be living in such freedom that people want what I have. I say all the time that I want to be Blessed (physically, mentally, spiritually, and financially) so that I can be a Blessing to others. Sure there are things I want to but do you know what gets me really excited? Blessing others. I want to be able to give cars to people, give money for school or groceries, and even houses. I want to be able to give freely no matter what the needs is. These verses found in Deuteronomy 28:1-14 will bring revelation to me as I dig deeper. It will give me the words I need to speak to have the Blessing manifest in my life.

So today I want to talk about Deuteronomy 28:1. "If you will listen diligently to the voice of the Lord your God, being watchful to do all His commandments which I command you this day, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth." So the first thing I see in this verse is there are conditions to the Blessing. I must listen to the voice of the Lord and obey Him and then the Blessing can come to pass. It seems like just yesterday, even though it has been a couple of years, where I really struggled to hear His voice. I learned that He is always speaking but I wasn't always taking the time to listen. These verses tell me that that I can hear the His voice.
 "But blessed (happy, fortunate, and to be envied) are your eyes because they do see, and your ears because they do hear." Matthew 13:16 (AMP)

"The sheep that are My own hear and are listening to My voice; and I know them, and they follow Me." John 10:27

"I will listen [with expectancy] to what God the Lord will say, for He will speak peace to His people, to His saints (those who are in right standing with Him)–but let them not turn again to [self-confident] folly." Psalm 85:8
The devil would always throw lies at me that would say, "You can't hear the voice of God." I began to tell the devil, "NO, I can hear the voice of the Lord." I still struggle some now but I know what to do now and that makes all the difference. When he tries to come at me I know how to get him to go away!

The second part of this verse talks about how we must obey His commandments. This is usually the hardest thing to do. God will ask me to do something and I want to obey but my flesh says that it is to far away or to hard. The list really could be endless. What I have learned is that it is really better just to obey immediately. The longer I dwell on something and mull over it in my mind the harder it is to obey what He originally told me to do. I have also learned that it is not enough just to read the Bible. I must do what it says. God wants me to be Blessed and prosperous in every area of my life and He wants the same for you. We have to get in the Word, know what it says, and then obey what the Word says. 

"But don’t just listen to God’s word. You must do what it says. Otherwise, you are only fooling yourselves. For if you listen to the word and don’t obey, it is like glancing at your face in a mirror. You see yourself, walk away, and forget what you look like. But if you look carefully into the perfect law that sets you free, and if you do what it says and don’t forget what you heard, then God will bless you for doing it." James 1:22-25 (NLT)

"This Book of the Law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, that you may observe and do according to all that is written in it. For then you shall make your way prosperous, and then you shall deal wisely and have good success." Joshua 1:8 (AMP)

"God will set you on high above all the nations of the earth." I believe this for our nation. Proverbs 11:11(NIV) says, "Through the blessing of the upright a city is exalted, but by the mouth of the wicked it is destroyed." So what are we saying about our country? Are we speaking Blessing or cursing? We need to be speaking life over this country and start praying for the leaders. I also believe this verse is very relevant to what is happening in Israel right now. He will lift them high above every nation. He will do what He says in Deuteronomy 28:7, 12 (NLT) He will keep them and protect the. We need to be praying for Israel right now and always!

"The lord will conquer your enemies when they attack you. They will attack you from one direction, but they will scatter from you in seven!"
 "The lord will send rain at the proper time from his rich treasury in the heavens and will bless all the work you do. You will lend to many nations, but you will never need to borrow from them."

This last part is truly exciting to me! We have been set on High with Christ. 
Ephesians 2:6 (AMP) "And He raised us up together with Him and made us sit down together [giving us joint seating with Him] in the heavenly sphere [by virtue of our being] in Christ Jesus (the Messiah, the Anointed One)."
Ephesians 2:6 (NLT)   "For he raised us from the dead along with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms because we are united with Christ Jesus."
When I first learned this I got really excited about what this means. Even on earth I am set on high because Jesus died for me. Colossians 1:13-14 says, "[The Father] has delivered and drawn us to Himself out of the control and the dominion of darkness and has transferred us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, In Whom we have our redemption through His blood, [which means] the forgiveness of our sins." This verse is awesome! We have been set on high in dominion over the powers and principalities. We have been made to rule over darkness. Do you know what this means? We have authority over the devil and every evil thing. If he tries to bring fear, sickness, anxiousness, poverty, etc. on us all we have to do is say is "NO devil! I am healed, I don't have a spirit of fear, I am prosperous, and I have no need to worry because God is on my side." Ephesians 6:10-14 tells of all the power we have been given. Even when we feel like we have done everything and have been standing for a long time, we should continue to stand! Just knowing that I have authority over the devil is awesome! Knowing that I can say what God says and the devil has to obey me! It is life changing!

"Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might. Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil. For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places. herefore take up the whole armor of God, that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. Stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate of righteousness." (Eph. 6:10-14, NKJV)

I want to leave you with this quote from Gloria Copeland. 

“We have authority in the Name of Jesus, and we rule over darkness. But,

we have to rule. If we don’t want the devil coming into our affairs, our bodies, our marriages, our finances, we have to say, ‘You’re not coming in here, Devil.’ We have to stand our ground, and we have to say right words.” —Gloria Copeland

So lets take a stand against the devil and tell him to get out!!! 

~Until Next Time~

Check out this link for notes on Deuteronomy 28:1-14. Also you can go here to listen to 10 lessons on the Blessing!

I studied a lot from these notes and lessons. I know you will get a lot out of them.