Be qualified!

Psalms 112:1 Praise the LORD! Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who greatly delights in his commandments!

There’s nothing we can do to earn God’s love, however, if we want to experience His blessings we need to observe the qualifications that He’s given us in His Word. Psalm 112 details a whole list of blessings, but the key to receiving them is verse 1.

“Blessed is the man that fears (puts his trust, honors, in awe of His majesty) the Lord, and delights greatly in His commandments. (Takes pleasure in what God says and obeys Him).”

Adopt that attitude toward Him and be assured, blessings are on the way! Your offspring will be mighty on the earth (vs 2), wealth and riches shall be in your house (vs 3), even in darkness the light shall shine on you (vs 4), you shall not be shaken (vs 6) in the midst of evil you will have no fear of bad news because your heart is set upon Him (vs 7).

Now I don’t know about you, but I want to live in the blessings of God!

Let’s live a life that God will bless, honor the Lord with our whole heart, and delight in obeying Him!

Psalms 112

1 Praise the LORD! Blessed is the man who fears the LORD, who greatly delights in his commandments!
2 His offspring will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed.
3 Wealth and riches are in his house, and his righteousness endures forever.
4 Light dawns in the darkness for the upright; he is gracious, merciful, and righteous.
5 It is well with the man who deals generously and lends; who conducts his affairs with justice.
6 For the righteous will never be moved; he will be remembered forever.
7 He is not afraid of bad news; his heart is firm, trusting in the LORD.
8 His heart is steady; he will not be afraid, until he looks in triumph on his adversaries.
9 He has distributed freely; he has given to the poor; his righteousness endures forever; his horn is exalted in honor.
10 The wicked man sees it and is angry; he gnashes his teeth and melts away; the desire of the wicked will perish!

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As we continue to probe the lessons from the salt covenant, we now inquire into our part in the covenant.

Yeshua (Jesus) said He is the “bread of life”. It was His body that was broken on our behalf as the substitutionary sacrifice for our sins. Notice that He never once called us to be the “bread of life”! He is the ONLY “Bread of Life” – the true bread who came down from Heaven which anyone may eat and not die. Whoever eats this bread will live forever. This bread is His flesh, given for the life of the world.

For years, when I visited my father-in-law’s home in Jerusalem on the Sabbath, we would break bread and bless the bread with the traditional blessing – “Baruch Ata Adonai Eleheynu Melech HaOlam Ha-Motzi Lechem Min Ha’aretz” – which translated means,”Blessed are You Lord our God, King of the Universe, Who has given us bread from the earth”. After the blessing, my father-in-law would take salt and sprinkle the challah bread as he broke and passed it to everyone at the table.

One day a passerby saw a homeless man on the roadside. He stopped for a moment to hand him some loose change and casually said “God bless you, my friend”.

“I thank God,” said the homeless man, “I am never unhappy.”

Here in Israel we have an interesting geographical phenomenon – there are two landlocked seas. One is alive and one is dead. The sea full of life is the Kinneret, better known as the Sea of Galilee. The dead sea is…….you guessed it, the Dead Sea. Now the Kinneret is constantly emptying as it flows through the Jordan River valley…. into the Dead Sea. But the Dead Sea does not empty its water at all. Instead, the Dead Sea is continually shrinking, because the intense heat at this lowest place on Earth actually evaporates more water than is flowing in. Do you see a parable here?

One of my passions is studying history, especially the American Civil War. Here is an amusing story about General Stonewall Jackson’s famous Valley Campaign. During the war, Jackson’s army found itself on one side of a river when it needed to be on the other.

We tend to focus on the part of that scripture where God does the blessing — but why did He bless Him? The answer lies in the passage! The Lord told Abraham: “I will bless you — and you shall be a blessing.” Abraham was blessed so that he could be a blessing!