The Father’s Blessing
For many people, life is a big financial struggle. They can’t afford basic necessities, they have trouble paying their bills, and quite a number of people are knee-deep in debt. Due to economic recession, tripled cost of living, going through each day has become a daunting experience for a lot of people.
God is interested in the wellbeing of His children. He is fully aware of what we need at any point in time. Matthew 6:8 says “For your Father knows the things you have need of before you ask Him.” God knows all the bills we need to pay. He knows the state of our nation’s economy even better than economists and financial experts. God knows how much we earn, He knows our daily living expenses. It is not in God’s nature to turn His back on us when we are in need or going through tough financial times. It is also not in His nature to dispense cash or put money on trees for us to pluck. What God does is to release His blessing on us.
There are different kinds of blessings God gives. For example, Malachi 3:10 talks of a blessing you don’t even have room to contain. Ezekiel 34:26 talks about showers of blessings. It was customary in Bible times to see fathers blessing their children before they passed on. These blessings were very powerful and greatly influenced their children’s lives. In Genesis 27, when Isaac was old, he called for his oldest son Esau to bless him. Unfortunately, Jacob connived with his mother and took this blessing. In Genesis 49, Jacob also released some pronouncements on his sons before his death. Some received positive pronouncements and blessings, while for some like Reuben who defiled his father’s marriage bed, Jacob’s dying declarations didn’t favour him. If these blessings from earthly fathers had such a strong effect on their children, how much more when we are blessed by the Father of fathers.
God is the Ultimate Father. The blessings He releases can outlive us (Genesis 12: 2-3, Galatians 3: 29). When God blessed Isaac, He blessed Isaac in three levels. Genesis 26:12-13 says ‘Then Isaac sowed in that land, and reaped in the same year a hundredfold; and the Lord blessed him. The man began to prosper, and continued prospering until he became very prosperous’. When God blessed Isaac, he began to prosper which means before then, he wasn’t prospering. I pray God, the Father, releases on us this month the blessing that makes a person who has been struggling, the blessing that makes a person who hasn’t had any significant financial growth or progress to start prospering.
Isaac also continued prospering. Isaac didn’t just get one big contract or breakthrough and after that went back to a life of struggling. The blessing God gave Isaac, wasn’t a one-off thing or for a particular period. God continued blessing Isaac and Isaac continued prospering. God continued blessing Isaac with wisdom, Isaac continued to do things that increased his resources not depleted his finances. It takes financial wisdom for someone to continue to prosper. Everyone can receive money, not everyone has a culture of financial prudence, and not everyone has the wisdom to turn the money received into something big. It also takes being fully delivered from the spirit of retrogression and the yoke of rising and falling for one to continue to prosper. This month may God bestow us with financial wisdom and deliver us totally and completely through the power in His Word from all financial limitations and strongholds that fight against continuous growth and progress.
Finally, we are told that Isaac became very prosperous. This had nothing to do with the state of the economy at that time. It was about being connected to the Fountain of Living Water that never runs dry. When we have this connection, in times of famine or recession, God sustains and satisfies us. When men are complaining bitterly of a casting down, God gives you testimonies of a financial lifting (Job 5:20, Job 22:29). At this level, a person has fully stepped into the abundant life Jesus died to give us.
God has promised to bless us, He can’t turn back on His Word, He can’t leave us to wallow in poverty. It was to redeem us from the curse of poverty that God sent His only begotten Son to die for us. If Jesus has set us free from poverty by His death on the cross, then we are free indeed from poverty, and the blessing of Abraham; the blessing of prosperity is now ours through Christ Jesus.
May God, the Giver of every good and perfect gift, lay His hand of blessing on us and release into our lives the Father’s blessing that makes rich and adds no sorrow, the Father’s blessing that revokes all evil curses and covenants, the Father’s blessing that brings us fully into the blessed and abundant life that is ours in Christ Jesus.
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