Do you want to be blessed?
This is the challenge & reward of
John 13:17
If you KNOW these things,
you are BLESSED if you DO them.
Messiah Yeshua/Jesus had just washed His disciples’ feet
16 Truly, truly, I tell you, no servant is greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.
It was just before the Pesach/Passover Festival and Yeshua/Jesus knew that the hour had come for Him to leave this world and go to the Father.
These were some of the final instructions given to HIs Talmidim/Disciples. And as we are also His Talmidim these words are for us too.
He is reminding us that knowledge has to become reality by putting into practice what we have learned.
When we know these things and do them then we are blessed….
IF
conditional
we want to be blessed …but,
what is it that we have to do?
What are these things to which He was referring?
One word for blessed in Hebrew is
Baruch בָּרוּך
The word bless, is used to refer to any action, object, or person that is blessed. The term blessing, is an expression of gratitude and gratefulness to God. Whether it is a family member, a friend, a loved one, or a colleague, the Hebrew word for blessing/baruch is a positive statement of love/ahavah.
The concept of blessing and blessed are foundational in the Hebraic mindset and are directed first and foremost towards our Heavenly Father Himself not towards the individual or for their benefit. They understood the conditions that were required to be blessed by God as listed in Leviticus 26. Here the scriptures also lists the curses that follow when not keeping His commandments.
Yeshua /Jesus reminded His disciples and followers that they were to be mindful that, following being healed from sickness and receiving deliverance from unclean spirits; they were not to sin again – lest a worse thing come upon them. He also listed those He declared blessed in the Beatitudes; which on first inspection appears to be a strange list of those who He considers to be blessed/Baruch. We tend to think first by material and physical things, where Yeshua/Jesus and His Father primarily think spiritually, in higher thoughts and ways.
Rooted in the Hebrew prayers are the blessings towards the Father as in the opening words of most prayers …
Baruch atah adonai elohaynu melech ha’olam
Blessed are You, O Lord our God, King of the Universe.
Blessing the Father is also the last line of another much used prayer known as the SHEMA.
Pronounced: shuh-MAH or SHMAH,
Alternate Spellings: Sh’ma, Shma,
Origin: Hebrew, the central prayer of Judaism, proclaiming God is one.
שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵינוּ יְהוָה אֶחָֽד
She-ma yisrael, adonai eloheinu, adonai echad
Hear O’ Israel, the Lord is our God, the Lord is One
בָּרוּךְ שֵׁם כְּבוֹד מַלְכוּתוֹ לְעוֹלָם וָעֶד
Baruch shem kavod malchuto l’olam va-ed
Blessed is the name of His glorious kingdom for ever and ever.
Shema Yisrael שְׁמַע יִשְׂרָאֵל Hear, O Israel
are the first two words of a section of the Torah that is the centerpiece of the morning and evening prayer services.
Hear, O Israel: God is our Lord, God is one.
In its entirety, the Shema consists of three paragraphs: Deuteronomy 6:4–9, Deuteronomy 11:13–21 and Numbers 15:37–41.
As Abraham was told
We are blessed to be a blessing and that not for ourselves.
We should not always be looking for blessings and praying for ourselves to be blessed but rather to say with the Psalmist:
BLESS the Lord o my soul
and all that is within me
BLESS His Holy Name.
When we bless God we are thanking Him for all He has done for us and declaring our love for Him acknowledging Who He is in our lives, giving Him the 1st place He deserves and the agreement that He is the Blessed and the One Who imparts the blessings. Many immediately think of things, when we see or hear the word blessing for provision; and in our answered prayers to things we need or desire in the natural physical realm. Sometimes we even ascribe blessings of God to things we just simply made happen for ourselves. We sometimes have a skewed viewpoint on what His blessings actually are.
Often when we ask someone how they are, their reply is
‘I’m blessed.’
It makes us think, do we really know what being blessed means, other than a feel-good response or a positive confession to evade agreeing with our adversary?
Psalm 1:1
HEB: אַ֥שְֽׁרֵי־ הָאִ֗ישׁ אֲשֶׁ֤ר ׀
NAS: How blessed is the man who
KJV: Blessed [is] the man that walketh
INT: blessed is the man who
Psalm 32
HEB: לְדָוִ֗ד מַ֫שְׂכִּ֥יל אַשְׁרֵ֥י נְֽשׂוּי־ פֶּ֗שַׁע
NAS: [A Psalm] of David. How blessed is he whose transgression
KJV: Blessed [is he whose] transgression
Blessed is the man who trusts in Him. Psalm 34:8
Strong’s Hebrew: 1293. בְּרָכָה (berakah) — a blessing
Genesis 12:2.
HEB: שְׁמֶ֑ךָ וֶהְיֵ֖ה בְּרָכָֽה׃. NAS: great; And so you shall be a blessing;
KJV: great; and thou shalt be a blessing:
INT: your name shall be a blessing.
The primary question posed was
Do you we want to be blessed/baruch?
The answer is obviously …yes
who wouldn’t want to be blessed?
And the next question would no doubt be simply..
How can we be blessed?
In the Word of God Jesus/Yeshua Himself tells us how.
John 13:17 if you know these things blessed are you if you do them
17 If you know these things, you will be blessed if you do them
He had just washed their feet showing the servant heart and action.
Our question is twofold
and of course conditional.
The condition is.. IF
And the answer to the first part is
we are to know these things…
know what things?
The things that pertain to life and godliness..
2 Peter 1:3
According as his divine power hath given unto us all things that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of him that hath called us to glory and virtue:
4 Whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises: that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.
5 And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge;
6 And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness;
7 And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness love.
Notice that the list of things that pertain unto life and godliness begins with faith and ends with love. These are all the things, blessings, that He gives to us.
He shows us the deep things of God.
Deep calls to deep. Ps. 42:7
All our directions and instructions for life, the life here and now, and the life to come; olam haba and olam hazeh.
The word life is always plural in Hebrew – chaim – literally lifes: life here without Yeshua/Jesus worldly and lost; then life here with Jesus/Yeshua saved, born again of His spirit from above and also eternal life in the Fathers’ presence – full redemption in a glorified state like the resurrected ascended Messiah.
Matthew 16:23 For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of Me will find it.
What are we to gain by losing?
The opposite of all the world screams at us, and offers us by its ways of temptation and empty promises of riches, and an easy road in life.
This is not the narrow way.
We are to study to show ourselves approved unto God. We are to love His Word, His Torah, His scriptures. We should have our determined purpose as ..to know Him and the power of His resurrection, and we do that by reading His Word and spending quality time in His presence; without any electronic digital devices, including phones.. His spirit of holiness does not need to communicate through those. If we can’t take even one hour without them, we are both addicted and in bondage; and if we reacted defensively in thought or word to that statement …has it not proved the point? Every loving parent will take a toy from their child from time to time as part of process of discipline.
Would we interrupt Jesus/Yeshua while He was talking to answer a call? We do it all the time.. if we believe that His presence is in us for one, and two, is He not present in our midst when we gather together? Family, these devices are leading us into the system set up for the one against Christ, the beast is already building his platform… and we are helping it to learn, grow and control us with our own input into the system. We share everything with it and think it is secure… we should be sharing our everything with Jesus/Yeshua – not our I phones etc. The I being an obvious first letter of this device! We are cautioned not to be ignorant of the devices of our enemy.
The subtleties of the enemy go back to the garden …and these modern elements are becoming firmly established as part of our lives.. Slowly like the frog in water, we get used to them and quite resourceful at making relevant reasons and/or excuses for their necessity. We make statements like …My whole life is in my phone ….when it should be in Messiah Christ. Our life is hid with God in Christ not in some search engine with the same 2 first letters…nor in the cloud! That is definitely NOT the cloud which will accompany Messiah’s return!
We need to check our spiritual temperatures and where we are spending our time.
We should be determined to know His word and know more than others, so we have something worthwhile to ‘share’ or ‘re tweet’! The scripture says we will be accountable for every word we speak, so let’s be holy in all manner of communication …and lets do it face to face, not from some remote secure location. forsaking not the assembling of yourselves together.
But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. (NKJV) Matthew 12:36.
We are not to spend our days in the safe harbors of life, full of joy and tied securely to the dock where the water is calm and undisturbed.
If we truly believe in Jesus/Yeshua we ourselves must cut the ropes that keep us safe in that harbor. If we don’t God will like a good father, sever them and send us out to sea into unfamiliar waters where we will really learn to reach out for His help.
We must experience the great depths of our Heavenly Father and begin to know things for ourselves. We must begin to have greater spiritual discernment; and by putting everything in our lives afloat on Him and launching out onto the oceans of this life, into the swelling tide of His plan and purpose… only then will our spirit eyes and ears be fully opened.
The second part is
doing
when we know to do something and do it…then immediately we know more – more is added..
Mark 4:25, ESV: For to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.”
Mark 4:25, KJV: For he that hath, to him shall be given: and he that hath not, from him shall be taken even that which he hath.
“For whoever has, to him shall be given, and he shall have more abundance. But whoever does not have, from him shall be taken away even that which he has” Matthew 13:12
If we have experienced that season of losing interest spiritually, we may find that it was where we neglected to do something we knew to do.
Maybe because we reasoned there was no immediate need, and now we have little to no discernment and when a time of crisis comes, we’ve become spiritually distracted instead of being spiritually controlled. This means we are not walking by the spirit but by the flesh.
This is disobedience and a door that only leads to apathy and loss of direction. Refusing to continue learning and knowing more, is a dangerous place to find ourselves. Thinking we know it all, is taking pride in ourselves. The more we know, the more we should realize that we know so very little – there is no end to an infinite God and His knowledge.
The most important part of
knowing and hearing is the doing
The shema is – hear and do –
it’s ALWAYS action.
If we will DO these things,
putting the word into practice in our lives and keeping the boundaries of our halak/walk within His precepts, then we will be following Him…
There is a counterfeit to true godly obedience, a subtle and sneaky option offered by a seducing spirit.
It is those suggestive options… just as he did with eve; in which we create our own ideas and opportunities to sacrifice ourselves, and our zeal and enthusiasm are mistaken for discernment.
It may be a good idea, and have great appeal, and even good fruit and notable results; however these counterfeits are good works apart from the spirit and will of the Father.
It’s a fact that it’s easier to sacrifice ourselves in time, talent and treasure; than to fulfill our spiritual sacrifice as detailed in Romans 12:1-2.
Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship. Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind.
Great acts of self-sacrifice don’t impress the Father and Jesus/Yeshua says to those who present that to Him...
depart from me I never knew you. Matthew 7:23 .
So it’s very possible to be busy occupied with many things, as was Martha, and yet not be doing the Fathers’ will for us.
Martha, Martha…you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better, and it will not be taken away from her. Luke 10:42
Martha was not wrong to want to serve the Lord, But Jesus prefers that she stop and listen to His Word.
We must be about His business, not ours; and it’s much better to do so by discerning His will in our life. Obedience is always better than what we deem as sacrificial. 1Sam. 15:22
And Samuel said, Hath Jehovah as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of Jehovah? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to hearken than the fat of rams.
We must guard our hearts
out of it issues of chaim/life..
everything we do flows from it.
Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it. Keep your mouth free of perversity; keep corrupt talk far from your lips. Let your eyes look straight ahead; fixed on the Lord. Prov. 24:3
By paying attention, so we don’t go in reverse, returning to what we once were; when our Father wants us to be something that we have never been… He chooses us and our path – we are to simply follow.
John 7:17 and if anyone wills to do His will he shall know.
(KJV 1900) 17 If any man will do his will, he shall know of the doctrine, whether it be of God, or whether I speak of myself.
Matt 5:9 Amplified Bible. 9 “Blessed [spiritually calm with life-joy in God’s favor]
Matt 5:6 6 “Blessed [joyful, nourished by God’s goodness]
Matt 5:4 4 “Blessed [forgiven, refreshed by God’s grace]
Blessed in Matthew 5:3-12 Amplified Bible.
3 “Blessed [spiritually prosperous, happy, to be admired]
are the poor in spirit [those devoid of spiritual arrogance, those who regard themselves as insignificant],
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven [both now and forever].
Matt 5:9 9 Blessed (enjoying [a]enviable happiness, [b]spiritually prosperous—[c]with life-joy and satisfaction in God’s favor and salvation, regardless of their outward conditions).
Reading the words in red … THIS is what it means to be BLESSED according to His Word….
Two more descriptions of those who are
blessed/baruch
Ps 119 :1 Blessed – happy, fortunate, to be envied
the word
Blessed is also written
esher in Hebrew:
Happiness blessedness
Strong’s Hebrew: 835.
אַשְׁרֵי esher
Pronounced: eh’-sher
from
H835 – ‘ešer – Strong’s Hebrew Lexicon (kjv) – Blue Letter Bible
Definition Brown-Driver-Briggs’
1) happiness, blessedness, only in masculine plural construction as interjection, how happy!:–blessed, happy.
אֶשֶׁר ‘ešer
HEB: אַשְׁרֵ֣י אֲנָשֶׁ֔יךָ אַשְׁרֵ֖י עֲבָדֶ֣יךָ אֵ֑לֶּה.
NAS: are your men, how blessed are these.
KJV: [are] thy men, happy [are] these thy servants,
This is the word blessed as used in Psalm 34:8. The word blessed appears in other scriptures, however, the Strong’s number may be different depending on the way in which that word is used.
אַשְׁרֵ
Blessed is also translated as Happy,
and is more than close to the name of one of the 12 tribes of Israel – Asher, which also means happy.
According to the Hebrew Text, the Tribe of Asher was one of the Tribes of Israel descended from Asher
Hebrew: אָשֵׁר ,
Modern: ʼAšer, Tiberian: ʼĀšēr, “happy one”
Asher is a Hebrew name meaning: happy and blessed, fortunate, and most blessed son.
The meaning of Asher comes from the Hebrew word osher, which means happiness.
Asher is consistently pronounced “ah-shur.” There are no alternative spellings of this name.
In Old English and Germanic, Asher means:
one who lives near an ash tree or grove,
or ash maker.
For those unfamiliar with Hebrew, illuminating the language through the alef-bet helps. Here we will take a moment to recall that Hebrew is unlike any other language and because It’s the one language God chose to use to first communicate with His children we should not be ignorant of why He did so.
Hebrew letters have unusual dynamics.
Each letter has a name!
Where we in the English alphabet say A B C D G H
in Hebrew it is Aleph, Bet, Gimmel, Dallet, Hey, etc.
Each letter also has a numerical value and each number has a meaning. In the beginning, each letter was a pictograph and from the pictograph/pictures, we derive meaning and because of this construction, there are many layers of understanding for each letter when we take the time to study them the deeper meanings of His Word are revealed rather than just the surface ones.
Secondly: the dots around the word, are the vowel markings and were added to let us know which vowels are being used in the word. Hebrew vowels do not have letters like our English vowel letters:–a-e-i-o-u.
אַשְׁרֵ
Hebrew always reads from right to left.
The Hebrew word Asher/Blessed, uses the letters
A – alef, SH – shin and R – resh
It begins with the first letter of the Hebrew alphabet– Aleph.
Aleph is the name of the letter and it has the numerical value of 1. The number 1 stands for God, Unity: as in bringing 2 things together to form 1 object; in this case, Father, Son, His Holy Spirit are 1.
It also stands for unique, one of a kind, like no other.
The original picture letter/pictograph looks like an Ox Head.
Aleph means: strength or power, leader, most important or first, the strength and power of a leader. When the letter Aleph is in a word, Our Heavenly Father is usually involved in the definition of it.
In the word asher – blessed,
we see that:
His strength and power are found.
Shin, pronounced Sheen is the 2nd letter in asher. Shin has a numerical value of 300 and that number stands for the victory of good over evil and Ruach HaKodesh/His Spirit od Holiness. Again reading right to left, the pictograph for Shin/sheen looks like the teeth of a pitchfork and also resembles bottom set of teeth, or flames of fire:
The meaning of Sheen/shin is:
to destroy or consume, the fire of God to destroy His enemies, something sharp.
In this letter, we see that in being blessed: something is being destroyed and victory of good over evil is the result.
The 3rd and final letter in asher/blessed is Resh which has a numerical value of 200 and stands for: insufficiency or poverty.
The picture/pictograph of the letter Resh, is the outline of a human head:
The meaning of Resh is: Head, Chief, Beginning, Highest or Most Important person, Human reasoning vs. obedience.
This is significant in meaning for us because when we allow Resh-human reasoning to be in control as the most important source of our lives, then poverty of Spirit is the result.
We could conclude that ASHER/BLESSED means:
We are blessed because our Heavenly Father in Unity, Oneness, Father, Son, and His Spirit; is moving in strength and power to destroy our enemies and overcome our human reasoning and weaknesses.
More at link below:
https://www.minimannamoments.com/alef-bet-alphabet/
The first mention of this Strong’s #835 word in scripture is in Deuteronomy 33:29. It speaks of the victory Israel has because they were saved by the LORD. Blessed translated as, and Happy, as it is in other verses of Scripture.
Happy (#835) art thou, O Israel: who is like unto thee, O people saved by the LORD, the Shield of thy help, and Who is the Sword of thy excellency! and thine enemies shall be found liars unto thee; and thou shalt tread upon their high places..
In the English language translation the words:
Blessed are You, Lord
falls somewhat short from making clear to the reader of the deep meaning of this key word, blessing.
As some scholars note, Ba-ruch, translated blessed, comes from the infinitive application of the verb to bless, which is an action that can also be done by people towards other individuals. This does suggest that we have the power to give/transfer a blessing to others. If we follow that as a logical premise, does having the power to give, mean we also have the power to take away a blessing from others? This may be true when we bless other people, but completely impossible in relation to our Heavenly Father in the sense that, we cannot take away a blessing from Him, and if that is the case, do we lack the power to bless Him as well? We can praise the Lord but can we bless the Lord? We say this expression on a regular basis yet it seems it raises a question.
This question however, only exists in the English translation because of its lack in fully interpreting the Hebrew term:
ba-ruch/blessed.
In Hebrew there is no question at all because its’ meaning is not giving blessing to
when it is said in relation to God.
The word ba-ruch
is derived from the word be-rech,
which is a knee.
In Hebrew when we say ba-ruch in relation to our Heavenly Father, we’re really saying
I’m kneeling before You, Lord.
Understanding the Hebrew meaning of the very commonly used word bless or blessed
provides us with a very beautiful picture and serves to remind us
of exactly where we are positioned when talking to Him.
It is a constant reminder both to ourselves and toward Him
of the humility we should express
when we are speaking to the King of the universe.
For I tell you, you will not see me from now on, until you say, Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!
Matthew 23:39
For more on kneel and berech click link below:
https://www.minimannamoments.com/what-is-blessing-and-who-is-blessed/
Sometimes our boldness in coming before His throne of grace, is more like arrogance, demanding His attention to solve our problems?
Here perhaps, the Hebrew can teach us something about humility?
One other place where our English translation shows a lack in terms of reverence is in Job:
Then said his wife to him, Do you still retain your integrity?
Curse God, and die. Job 2:9.
Although this is what Job’s wife really meant to say to him, in Hebrew, these are not the words she said! Due to the uncompromising reverence toward the Creator of the heavens and the earth being intrinsically embedded within the Hebrew language, (which we do not fully comprehend as a concept), the words “curse” and “God” cannot be written and or dwell side by side!
The Hebrew text says: …bless God, and die.
The reader is expected to understand that the meaning of bless in this context as being exactly the opposite, but the Hebrew language cannot tolerate writing, seeing, speaking or reading the degrading word “curse” attached to the name of God! It seems we grafted in gentiles still have a long way to go….!!!?
Do you want to be blessed?
Then…
Obedience is the key!
If you KNOW these things, you are BLESSED [happy and favored by God] if you put them into practice [and faithfully DO them].
Wesley’s New Testament (1755)
Messiah always insisted that being a true talmidim/disciple, was not in intellectual knowledge of His teaching, (mental assent/head knowledge); but developed and matured out of a real relationship with Him, living and walking in joyful obedience with His will.
Ariel view of Joshuas Altar.
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