How to Withdraw Blessings from Your Heavenly Account
It may seem unusual to some readers for me to include blessing as a currency that Heaven would recognize or give authority to.
The reason why it sounds somewhat different is because for most of us the definition of blessing includes the idea of material accumulation. We use the term to explain that we are doing well because we are blessed, and in some contexts that could be true.
In the context of what Heaven considers blessed has nothing to do with financial security or how many cars you might own. The biblical definition for blessing has more to do with speaking or declaring something the way God sees a matter and how we speak about it. Blessing in the Greek New Testament is eulogia where we get our English word eulogy, which means to praise or speak well of someone. 1 Peter 3:8-9 (NIV) says:
Finally, all of you, be like-minded, be sympathetic, love one another, be compassionate and humble. Do not repay evil with evil or insult with insult. On the contrary, repay evil with blessing, because to this you were called so that you may inherit a blessing.
Blessing is understood by declaring the way God intends something to be—instead of saying what it appears to be at the moment. In Luke 6:28 (NKJV) Jesus says, “Bless those who curse you, and pray for those who spitefully use you.” There is a difference between truth and facts. Facts are what things appear to be, but truth triumphs over facts. You can choose to live by the facts or live by the truth. For instance, a doctor may say you have six months to live, which may be a scientific fact, but the truth is what the Word of God says. Truth is the Person named the Holy Spirit. The truth is, by the stripes of Jesus you are healed (see Isaiah 53:5; 1 Peter 2:24). We are not to live by bread alone but by every word the proceeds from the mouth of God (see Deuteronomy 8:3; Matthew 4:4). Truth comes from the mouth of God; facts can be temporary when we start declaring the way God intends the situation to turn out.
Most people spend their time repeating the facts instead of blessing their body to be what God intends their body to be, which is not a sickly fact of science. You have a body you can either bless or curse. First Corinthians 6:19 (NKJV) says, “Or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own?” If you bless your body as a temple of the Lord, then you are in agreement with God’s intentions for your body. Psalm 139:14 tells us that we are fearfully and wonderfully made and marvelous are God’s works. Blessing your own body means calling your body back into alignment to God’s original intentions of His creation for you.
The reason Heaven sees blessing as a currency is because it releases the “Word of the Lord.” Notice 1 Peter 3:8-9 is very specific in not returning evil for evil; we are to instead give blessing to replace the evil or reviling words that come out of a mouth that is agreeing with the devil. The devil is the accuser, the curser of people. Blessing cuts off the intentions of the devil—blessing is our weapon that resists his plans. This Scripture passage also tells us that we are called to bless in the same way we are called into a gifting; and by practicing the gift of blessing, we then inherit blessing. Inherited blessing is living under the word of the Lord that God declares over your life and family.
There are those who seem to live under a curse and never seem to prosper or experience any good fortune. It could be that they have not discovered the inheritance of blessing. If you have read my book The Power of Blessing, you will remember my account of how my life was changed forever when I discovered the revelation of blessing.
My wife, Diane, and I were driving on Interstate 30 in Dallas, Texas, headed to a meeting. Traffic was typical for the Metroplex, and if that wasn’t enough, it was during 5 o’clock rush hour traffic. Suddenly, a young man in a small truck decided to cut in front of me and almost hit my right front fender. I slammed on my brakes and what came out of my mouth was something I wasn’t proud of—in fact, my mother would have washed my mouth out with soap. I blurted out, “Idiot!” Diane, who sounds very much like the Holy Spirit, said to me, “Pardon me, what did you say?” I sheepishly said, “Well, he is.”
To my surprise I realized I was having an inner dialogue with the Holy Spirit. I heard the Lord say, “Why did you just call Me an idiot?” Strange as it sounds, this internal conversation was straightforward, and I knew I had been busted. I replied to Him in my mind’s thoughts, I didn’t call You an idiot. And before I could finish my defense, He quoted James 3:9 (NKJV), “With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God.” I knew I had no leg to stand on when He was quoting Scripture to me. The final blow was when He said Matthew 25:40, “As you have done it to the least of these you have done the same to Me.”
The message sunk deep into my spirit. What started out as a moment of a poor choice of words in the middle of rush hour, became a personal life-changing message from God to me. I quickly repented all the while this was going on inside my heart, and then I heard the Lord say, “Now, bless him.” I flippantly said, “Bless ya.” That would not be sufficient. Then God said, “No. Bless him the way you want to be blessed.” I thought to myself, Well now, that’s a completely different issue. So I thought for a moment and the words began to flow. I started by declaring, “You are a son of promise, and you will experience the fullness of the presence of God. I bless you with long life and safety for you and your family.” The only way I can explain to you what happened next is simply to say, I felt the pleasure of the Lord flowing through my physical body. It was as if all the chemistry of my brain, including endorphins, were flooding my entire being. I felt euphoric. I realized how much joy the Lord received when I was blessing instead of stating my negative opinion about some- one I didn’t even know.
From that moment on I wanted more of that joy, so I started blessing every situation that I encountered, even the ones that seemed there was no way for it to be turned around—and then I would see the miracle happen. Blessing really does work, and Heaven responds to invoking the very nature of the Lord into every circumstance. The way I bless others is the same way I am blessing Jesus. Because blessing is declaring the way God sees things, then cursing is the opposite of blessing. I’m not talking about cussing, which is bad too, I am speaking of cursing people or things that God has blessed. Cursing is saying or declaring something to be in a lower place than what God intends for them to be. In His prayer recorded in Matthew 6:10, Jesus asks that the Lord’s will be done on earth as it is Heaven.
We know that the accuser was cast out of Heaven and was cast down to earth. We are living in the place where the god of this world blinds people through cursing and planting in their minds the words to curse one another (2 Corinthians 4:4). Cursing is the nature of our adversary. Our warfare is against the spirit of cursing, and blessing is the weapon that cursing cannot overcome. Blessing is more than flattering statements, it is sharing the heart of God through His lens, not through the evil eyes of the devil. Evil is bound up in the heart of fallen humans, blessing comes in the opposite spirit to destroy the work of the devil. James 4:7 (NKJV) says for us to “submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” The word resist here means to replace with the opposite word. The way we can resist the devil after submitting to God is to replace cursing with blessing.
I was teaching in a Bible school about blessing, and the office manager of a company said she wasn’t too sure what I was saying would work, in her case. She and the owner had been at odds for a good while, and she was sure she was going to be fired. She described the environment of the office and admitted she had done her share of cursing the boss in front of the other staff. I told her that cursing had set an atmosphere that was resistant to any favor she would receive. I challenged her to try something for at least a week, using blessing as a replacement for the cursing environment she had created with the other employees.
The next day was Monday, and she began by repenting to God for all the cursing and accusations she had gossiped to other workers. Before any of the staff or bosses had arrived that day, she went through the building blessing the boss and thanking the Lord for the source from which she derived her income. She continued blessing the other workers when the opportunity would arise. Not even a week passed before she saw a positive change in the office. She first noticed her attitude toward her boss began to soften and others saw the change in her as well.
On Friday her boss called her into his office and asked her to shut the door. She just knew the ax was coming and she was going to be fired. His first words to her were acknowledging that neither of them cared much for each other, but he told her something had changed recently and he wanted her to stay on as office manager. He also said that he had been withholding a raise from her that she had coming two months ago, so he was going to give her the raise retroactive from two months previous. She was so excited to let me know how dramatic her work environment had changed by doing only one thing differently—changing from a mouth full of cursing to one full of blessing.
