Want A Better Blessing?
Good News – October 2022 – Grace & Truth Magazine
Want A Better Blessing?
The LORD bless you and keep you;
The Lord make His face shine upon you, and be gracious to you;
The Lord lift up His countenance upon you, and give you peace.
—Numbers 6:24-26 NKJV
These marvelous words form the blessing that the priests of the Old Testament were to pass on to the Israelites, God’s earthly people. But how and when could such a benediction be meaningfully applied to them? God could only bestow this blessing on the people when they obeyed His laws. Unfortunately, most of the Old Testament history shows that they did not keep His holy requirements. Neither can we, “for all have sinned” (Rom. 3:23)!
We all sin because we are sinners, and the consequence of our sins is death. The Bible says, “The wages of sin is death” (6:23). That’s no blessing but a curse! We certainly can’t keep the Ten Commandments, as our hearts are no better than those of our predecessors. Because we are born sinners, we do not have to learn how to be liars, thieves, selfish or anything else that is bad. It all comes naturally because “the heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked” (Jer. 17:9).
What can we do to regain a blessing? We can’t work for it – it’s a gift! The apostle Paul wrote in Ephesians 2:8-9: “It is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.” Actually, a greater blessing is available to us! It is even better than what the Old Testament believers could claim. To understand this consider what God says in Romans 4:7-8, “Blessed are those whose lawless deeds [sins] are forgiven, and whose sins are covered; blessed is the man to whom the LORD shall not impute sin.” This blessedness is only possible because the Lord Jesus paid the “wages of sin” on the cross when He bore our sins in His body and shed His blood (1 Pet. 2:24; Heb. 9:14,22).
To gain this great blessing all you have to do is “confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, [and] you will be saved. For with the heart one believes unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto salvation” (Rom. 10:9-10). With the blessing of salvation comes much more: “Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him” (1 Cor. 2:9).
The blessing of salvation comes as a gift, but a gift isn’t yours until you receive it! God has left the decision up to you. We beg you to accept the gift before it is too late, for “we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God” (2 Cor. 5:20)! We can tell you how.
By G. H. B.