Lev. 9:22-24 says, “Aaron lifted up his hand toward the people, and blessed them and came down from offering the sin offering, and the burnt offering, and the peace offerings. And Moses and Aaron went into the tabernacle of the congregation and came out, and blessed the people: and the glory of the LORD appeared unto all the people. And there came a fire out from before the LORD, and consumed upon the altar, the burnt offering and the fat, which when all the people saw, they shouted and fell on their faces.”

To invoke or ask a blessing on the people, is a blessed privilege! It is recorded in Gen. 1:22 that the Creator, Elohim was the first to bless His creation. “And God blessed them saying, Be fruitful and multiply and fill the waters in the seas, and let fowl multiply in the earth.” The Prayer of The Blessing, do we do this? Are our people, blessed by our partaking of this privilege given to us by our God? Num. 6:22-27 gives us what is called the “Aaronic Blessing.” Can we ask a blessing on our people, our churches, our families, our friends, our nation, our enemies? I believe we can, in fact I believe we are missing one of the greatest blessings of our lives by not blessing others! If we were to partake of this God given principle it would have an impact on our lives and on the lives of our families and churches as well. It was after this blessing that the, “Glory of the LORD appeared” to the people. v.23. We must never rob God of His glory, never! If there is one thing I have learned on this earth, it is that God shares His glory with no one.

The fire of the LORD fell from heaven and the people shouted and fell on their faces, you can’t stand before God’s glory and when you bless in His name you give Him the glory due His name. Look at Num. 6:22-27 for a moment, “The Aaronic Blessing;” God says to Moses, “Speak to Aaron and his sons saying, This is the way you shall bless the children of Israel;” So God gives them a pattern to follow; v.24, The LORD bless you and keep you; v.25, The LORD make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you; v.26, The LORD lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace; v. 27, So shall they put My name on them and I (Jehovah) will bless them. You see, it is the LORD who does the blessing and gets the glory, man just gets the privilege of invoking the blessing upon the people, the church, his family, friends, etc. We fear this privilege because it is too religious, too liturgical, so we lose the privilege and our families and friends lose the blessings and God loses the glory for our dead orthodoxy and our dead fundamentalism. Some day someone is going to come along and pick up this old Bible and read it and believe what it says and do it and we will all stand before God red-faced and embarrassed. By the way that man’s name will be something like Elijah, Elisha, Noah, Enoch, Daniel or something like that.

“The Power of The Blessing,” may we begin today to invoke this privilege upon our people and may we begin today to give God the glory due His name. Lev. 9:22, “Aaron lifted up his hand toward the people and blessed them…” In Luke 24:50, Christ did the same thing, “And He (Christ) lifted up His hands and blessed them.” King David speaks of lifting up his hands in prayer in Psalm 141:2, “And the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.” By the way that was offed at 3:00 PM, note that time in your Bibles. Paul mentions it in I Tim. 2:8, “I will therefore, that men pray everywhere lifting up holy hands…”

In Gen. 12:1-3, the LORD told Abram that He would make him a great nation and “Bless” him and make his name great and that he would be a “Blessing.” Not only that but the LORD told him that He would also “Bless” those that “Blessed” him and his people, Israel. Then the LORD ended by promising him that all the families of the earth would be “Blessed” in him, Abraham. From then on the sons and daughters sought the blessing of their fathers, Ishmael and Isaac; Jacob and Esau; Jacob’s twelve sons; Joseph’s two sons, read Gen. 49-50. In fact even today in Jewish Orthodox and Ultra-Orthodox homes on the Sabbath the fathers and mothers will recite blessings over their children and many times lay their hands on their children while reciting the blessing. When was the last time you laid your hands on your children and prayed a blessing over them? My parents laid their hands on me on many occasions but it wasn’t to bless me. 🙂 I was 38 years old when my father told me he loved me for the first and only time, it was 11:00 am, Thanksgiving morning, he was sitting at a bar in their home, drinking with my cousin when he said it, but I’ll take it and treasure it till I die. A “Blessing” I would treasure for all eternity and then some, and so would you!

Why are they so important? Well they invoke the power of God’s name and there is power in God’s name and in Jesus’ name, John 14:13-14. When we use God’s name in a Biblically based blessing He empowers the one we blessed to carry out the request of that blessing. In Num. 6:22-27 God gave Aaron the exact words to use in blessing His people and in v.24 He said, “They shall put My name upon the children of Israel and I will bless them.” Also it uses the power of the tongue, and there is great power in the words we speak. Prov. 18:21 says, “Death and life are in the power of the tongue…” Ironically the same word in Hebrew for “Blessing” is also used for “Cursing” and this is seen in Gen. 49 in Jacob’s sons whose lives bore this out. One of the most important reasons for honoring our mothers and fathers is to receive their verbal blessings. Failure to do so will greatly damage the potential we have for our lives and its longevity. (Read Eph. 6:2-3) Also our blessings should be based on the LORD’s words not our words or desires, because He said, “So shall My word be that goes forth out of My mouth; it shall not return unto Me void, but it shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the thing whereto I sent it.”

We need to memorize, Num. 6:24-26, “The LORD bless you, and keep you; The LORD make His face shine upon you, and be gracious unto you; The LORD lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.” That is only 32 words and it would take you less than 10 seconds to genuinely pray it over someone, from your heart to the heart of God and truly bless them. (You can do it silently and genuinely) Can you imagine what would happen to your world, if you put His name on your people (work, school, home, club, etc) and He started to bless them for His glory? A father’s blessing is also one of the most valuable gifts you could ever receive, yet so few fathers ever give their children a “Spiritual Blessing.” Why, because most fathers don’t know what to pray. Therefore, a wise son or daughter could write out the blessing they want to receive and ask their father to pray it over them. This is similar to a lawyer writing up a contract for us to sign, since we don’t know the proper terminology to use, but once we sign it we validate it. In the same way once the father prays the blessing in Jesus’ name, he validates the blessing for his son or daughter and puts the LORD’s name on that child and He will bless them as He promised in His word. The word for bless is the Hebrew word (barak) and means to bless God in adoration, or to bless man as a benefit. To bless in the O.T. means to endue with the power of success, prosperity, fertility, longevity, etc; Isn’t that what Christ did on the Mount of Olives in Acts 1:8; and Luke 24:50?   Maybe I should have entitled this, “The Power of The Blessing!” Either way I think you can read, “…Between The Lines…”

“The Prayer of The Blessing” 12/10/12