I was talking to a friend the other day who was about to start homeschooling her children. In the course of this conversation, she said, "I know I'm not supposed to call it a 'blessing,' but I don't know how else to say it. I feel blessed that we have a 3rd paycheck this month just in time to help buy things we'll need to start homeschooling." Now, I'm not positive that this blog post is what my friend was referring to when she said she knew she wasn't supposed to call a paycheck a blessing, but it's what I immediately recalled.
It's a popular blog post that I've seen on my Facebook feed several times. I've seen it posted by compassionate, thoughtful Christian friends, so I've read it several times now as it has come up in my feed. I may have even "liked" it at some point as I felt it pushed against the prosperity gospel, which I believe is an incredibly destructive teaching. However, it has sat less and less well with me the more times I've come across it, and this last incident really highlighted for me why I take issue with it now. Money can be a blessing from God. Your house can be a blessing from God. Your job can be a blessing from God.
This indeed seems to be an issue of semantics, as the original blogger pointed out. However, I think it's important to consider this issue anew, particularly if you've read the original blog post. To do so, let me first address some of the original blogger's points.
"First, when I say that my material fortune is the result of God’s blessing, it reduces The Almighty to some sort of sky-bound, wish-granting fairy who spends his days randomly bestowing cars and cash upon his followers."
Why would material fortune being a blessing from God reduce Him to a capricious and random fairy or, as he later suggests, a positive-reinforcing behavioral psychologist? I agree that God is not capricious, random, or guaranteed to give out goodies in equal distribution to our good works or good faith. However, neither is He required to give out equal and same blessings to everyone during their lives on earth. Jesus ended the Parable of the Bags of Gold (a.k.a. the Parable of the Talents) with "For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them." (Matthew 25:29) It may not sit well in modern Christian American hearts, but Scripture does not promise equal blessings to each Christian.
"Nowhere in scripture are we promised worldly ease in return for our pledge of faith."
On this point, I absolutely agree. However, I don't understand the extension of him saying that calling "material good fortune" a blessing is always incorrect. He points to the Beatitudes in Matthew 5 as examples of true blessings. I do not disagree with him. However, this is not the only place in Scripture that talks about people being blessed, and these are not the only types of blessings mentioned in Scripture. My daily Bible reading today landed me in Genesis 39 where I read these verses:
Here I think we need to stop and consider what IS then a blessing from God. How can we frame our understanding of blessings to be in line with Scripture and to give God credit when credit is due? In the Scriptural examples I've referenced above (that Parable of the Talents, the story of Joseph in Potiphar's house, and Psalm 67), blessings from God were given to bring glory back to God. They were given in order that God's will would be done in and through the person He was blessing and to make His renown known to others. In the parable, the reason why the servants who had much were to be given more was because they used what they had been given for the work the Master had entrusted to them. Accomplishing the Master's work well, clearly brings glory back to the Master, and the Master in the story bestowed more blessings on those servants who would continue to use what they were given to carry out the Master's work. In the story of Joseph, the blessing of Joseph's successful work was given to get Joseph into the position of leadership that God had designed him for in order to eventually save the family and line of Israel. Finally, when we look at the full breadth of Psalm 67 we see it plainly stated that the design and purpose of blessings is to bring glory back to God.
Now, Scott, the original blogger, made an important point that I think still needs to be addressed somehow. A prosperous Christian who calls material good fortune a blessing from God could be offensive and hurtful to the many millions of people who have not received as much material good fortune as he or she has received. What do we do about that? First of all, I do not believe that denying God's blessings to actually be blessings from God is the right step. I believe that my children are a blessing from God. This is in line with Scripture. However, I can easily imagine how this could be hurtful or offensive to an infertile couple or someone who has recently lost a child. That doesn't mean I should deny to myself or anyone else that my kids are a blessing. I'm just also going to choose to be mindful of not rubbing other people's faces into my particular blessings. This just makes sense though in light of both love and the fact that the blessings are not about me! My blessings are not meant to bring me glory or comfort or security. They are meant to accomplish God's will in and through me and to bring Him glory.
What if I proclaimed my blessings more in light of the purpose of those blessings? What if much of this controversy surrounding what is and isn't a blessing from God has more to do with a misunderstanding of the purpose of blessings? What if this misunderstanding could begin to be remedied by recognizing more of my blessings from God rather than fewer of them? I said before that my children are a blessing from God. They are. The three children who were screaming an hour and a half ago, who tracked mud through my house and onto my newly re-upholstered chair today, who have interrupted my attempts to blog several times today...those same children are absolutely a blessing from the Lord. Not because they make me happy all the time or even most of the time though. Not because they are cute or extend my family line. Not because I hope they will bring me comfort or glory in my old age. No, they are blessings to me because God, as the Creator of all life, brought them into being and because with them God is accomplishing His will in and through me and bringing glory back to himself. When I choose to practice grace with them because I am reminded of how often I have needed His grace, then He is accomplishing His will in and through me. When I choose to listen to His conviction to teach my children right now instead of devoting my life more to a teaching career that would bring me recognition, I acknowledge that He is using my children to remind me that I am not to make choices based on what would bring glory to myself. When I say staying home with my children is one of the hardest, most transformative, most blessed, and ultimately one of the most fulfilling undertakings of my life so far, I thank my God for this blessing in my life, and I give the glory back to Him. That is just as it should be. I will not deny my blessings before the Lord or before mankind. To Him be the glory now and forever more!
I will, however, choose to be mindful of not mistaking comforts or security as blessings or vice versa. I love to sleep in on Saturday mornings when my husband is home. Although my husband is most definitely a blessing from the Lord, the gift of sleeping in is a comfort given to me by my affectionate husband. It's not necessarily a blessing from the Lord to me. He's not accomplishing anything in or through me during that time. It's an earthly luxury, and one that I need to be willing to give up if God asks me to do so in order to use that time more wisely for His kingdom purposes. I think that this distinction may be why some modern American Christians are hesitant to call their money a blessing from the Lord. So much of it may be being used for luxuries. It's possible that none of it has been dedicated to accomplishing God's purposes and bringing Him glory.
In fact, I think this may be the final piece of the puzzle in whether or not you can or should call your material possessions an blessing from the Lord. Are you USING them to bring glory to God, to accomplish His kingdom work? If you are hoarding the finances or other resources that you have merely in order to add comfort, security, or pleasure for your own self and family, if you have not chosen to use what you've been given to bring glory to God, then it seems you are acting much more in line with the final servant in the Parable of the Talents, the one who hoarded his blessing. He buried it in the ground to keep it safe and was ultimately rebuked by the Master, stripped of even what he had been given, and cast out into utter darkness.
I think it's far more important to talk about and think about the purpose of our blessings from God rather than to make seemingly arbitrary categories about what sorts of things could or could not be a blessing from God. If you're using your house to let others know how wealthy and successful you are, or if you're using your home merely as a hiding place for yourself, or if you have prioritized your house over following the will of God perhaps by acquiring the house through unGodly means, I agree, you shouldn't talk about your house being a blessing from the Lord. If, however, you acquired your house through Godly means and you're using your home as a place to minister to others, to grow in Him, and to give Him praise and glory, then Hallelujah! Why hesitate to call that home a blessing from the Lord whether it's a mansion or a cardboard box? God has given us different works to do. Our blessings will look different. There are different types of wealth, different types of resources. Different types and amounts and timing of blessings are necessary for the different works He has given to us at different times in our lives. Let's focus more on being faithful with what He HAS given us rather than comparing between ourselves or saying that one person's blessing can't be a blessing if someone else didn't have access to the same thing. Let's each of us rejoice with each other in the blessings that the Lord has given us because they have been given to accomplish His works and to bring Him glory.
My dear sisters and brothers in Christ, if you have just what you need in order to do the work that God has set before you to do, go ahead and call it a blessing! Whether it's a winning lottery ticket, an extra paycheck, an open morning, a troubled child, a shack, or a run-down car; our blessings don't look the same because our work is not the same. May those of us who are prosperous in this world not see prosperity as a pathway to comfort and luxury but instead may we commit to using our material good fortune to advance His kingdom work and to bring Him glory. (I had no idea this blog post was going to end like this when I started it. Oh, how often my attempts to blog end up in personal conviction! I'm going to have to pray about this one more. Am I using what He has given me well? Am I being a good steward? I know some areas that I can and should improve in this, things that I need to re-commit to using for His work. What about you?)
"Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." (James 1:16-17)
"And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.
It's a popular blog post that I've seen on my Facebook feed several times. I've seen it posted by compassionate, thoughtful Christian friends, so I've read it several times now as it has come up in my feed. I may have even "liked" it at some point as I felt it pushed against the prosperity gospel, which I believe is an incredibly destructive teaching. However, it has sat less and less well with me the more times I've come across it, and this last incident really highlighted for me why I take issue with it now. Money can be a blessing from God. Your house can be a blessing from God. Your job can be a blessing from God.
This indeed seems to be an issue of semantics, as the original blogger pointed out. However, I think it's important to consider this issue anew, particularly if you've read the original blog post. To do so, let me first address some of the original blogger's points.
"First, when I say that my material fortune is the result of God’s blessing, it reduces The Almighty to some sort of sky-bound, wish-granting fairy who spends his days randomly bestowing cars and cash upon his followers."
Why would material fortune being a blessing from God reduce Him to a capricious and random fairy or, as he later suggests, a positive-reinforcing behavioral psychologist? I agree that God is not capricious, random, or guaranteed to give out goodies in equal distribution to our good works or good faith. However, neither is He required to give out equal and same blessings to everyone during their lives on earth. Jesus ended the Parable of the Bags of Gold (a.k.a. the Parable of the Talents) with "For whoever has will be given more, and they will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what they have will be taken from them." (Matthew 25:29) It may not sit well in modern Christian American hearts, but Scripture does not promise equal blessings to each Christian.
"Nowhere in scripture are we promised worldly ease in return for our pledge of faith."
On this point, I absolutely agree. However, I don't understand the extension of him saying that calling "material good fortune" a blessing is always incorrect. He points to the Beatitudes in Matthew 5 as examples of true blessings. I do not disagree with him. However, this is not the only place in Scripture that talks about people being blessed, and these are not the only types of blessings mentioned in Scripture. My daily Bible reading today landed me in Genesis 39 where I read these verses:
The Lord was with Joseph so that he prospered, and he lived in the house of his Egyptian master. When his master saw that the Lord was with him and that the Lord gave him success in everything he did, Joseph found favor in his eyes and became his attendant. Potiphar put him in charge of his household,and he entrusted to his care everything he owned. From the time he put him in charge of his household and of all that he owned, the Lord blessed the household of the Egyptian because of Joseph. The blessing of the Lord was on everything Potiphar had, both in the house and in the field. So Potiphar left everything he had in Joseph’s care; with Joseph in charge, he did not concern himself with anything except the food he ate.It seems pretty clear to me in this passage that success in one's work and material good fortune can indeed be blessings from God. Psalm 67:6, as another example sings out "The land yields its harvest; God, our God, blesses us." It seems pretty clear to me that the writers of Scripture didn't exclude material good fortune as a blessing from God.
Here I think we need to stop and consider what IS then a blessing from God. How can we frame our understanding of blessings to be in line with Scripture and to give God credit when credit is due? In the Scriptural examples I've referenced above (that Parable of the Talents, the story of Joseph in Potiphar's house, and Psalm 67), blessings from God were given to bring glory back to God. They were given in order that God's will would be done in and through the person He was blessing and to make His renown known to others. In the parable, the reason why the servants who had much were to be given more was because they used what they had been given for the work the Master had entrusted to them. Accomplishing the Master's work well, clearly brings glory back to the Master, and the Master in the story bestowed more blessings on those servants who would continue to use what they were given to carry out the Master's work. In the story of Joseph, the blessing of Joseph's successful work was given to get Joseph into the position of leadership that God had designed him for in order to eventually save the family and line of Israel. Finally, when we look at the full breadth of Psalm 67 we see it plainly stated that the design and purpose of blessings is to bring glory back to God.
May God be gracious to us and bless usIt is a perfectly valid response to recognize and proclaim and rejoice in the Lord in light of the blessings He has given you! Those blessings were given to accomplish His work and bring Him glory!
and make his face shine on us
so that your ways may be known on earth,
your salvation among all nations.
May the peoples praise you, God;
may all the peoples praise you.
May the nations be glad and sing for joy,
for you rule the peoples with equity
and guide the nations of the earth.
May the peoples praise you, God;
may all the peoples praise you.
The land yields its harvest;
God, our God, blesses us.
May God bless us still,
so that all the ends of the earth will fear him.
Now, Scott, the original blogger, made an important point that I think still needs to be addressed somehow. A prosperous Christian who calls material good fortune a blessing from God could be offensive and hurtful to the many millions of people who have not received as much material good fortune as he or she has received. What do we do about that? First of all, I do not believe that denying God's blessings to actually be blessings from God is the right step. I believe that my children are a blessing from God. This is in line with Scripture. However, I can easily imagine how this could be hurtful or offensive to an infertile couple or someone who has recently lost a child. That doesn't mean I should deny to myself or anyone else that my kids are a blessing. I'm just also going to choose to be mindful of not rubbing other people's faces into my particular blessings. This just makes sense though in light of both love and the fact that the blessings are not about me! My blessings are not meant to bring me glory or comfort or security. They are meant to accomplish God's will in and through me and to bring Him glory.
What if I proclaimed my blessings more in light of the purpose of those blessings? What if much of this controversy surrounding what is and isn't a blessing from God has more to do with a misunderstanding of the purpose of blessings? What if this misunderstanding could begin to be remedied by recognizing more of my blessings from God rather than fewer of them? I said before that my children are a blessing from God. They are. The three children who were screaming an hour and a half ago, who tracked mud through my house and onto my newly re-upholstered chair today, who have interrupted my attempts to blog several times today...those same children are absolutely a blessing from the Lord. Not because they make me happy all the time or even most of the time though. Not because they are cute or extend my family line. Not because I hope they will bring me comfort or glory in my old age. No, they are blessings to me because God, as the Creator of all life, brought them into being and because with them God is accomplishing His will in and through me and bringing glory back to himself. When I choose to practice grace with them because I am reminded of how often I have needed His grace, then He is accomplishing His will in and through me. When I choose to listen to His conviction to teach my children right now instead of devoting my life more to a teaching career that would bring me recognition, I acknowledge that He is using my children to remind me that I am not to make choices based on what would bring glory to myself. When I say staying home with my children is one of the hardest, most transformative, most blessed, and ultimately one of the most fulfilling undertakings of my life so far, I thank my God for this blessing in my life, and I give the glory back to Him. That is just as it should be. I will not deny my blessings before the Lord or before mankind. To Him be the glory now and forever more!
I will, however, choose to be mindful of not mistaking comforts or security as blessings or vice versa. I love to sleep in on Saturday mornings when my husband is home. Although my husband is most definitely a blessing from the Lord, the gift of sleeping in is a comfort given to me by my affectionate husband. It's not necessarily a blessing from the Lord to me. He's not accomplishing anything in or through me during that time. It's an earthly luxury, and one that I need to be willing to give up if God asks me to do so in order to use that time more wisely for His kingdom purposes. I think that this distinction may be why some modern American Christians are hesitant to call their money a blessing from the Lord. So much of it may be being used for luxuries. It's possible that none of it has been dedicated to accomplishing God's purposes and bringing Him glory.
In fact, I think this may be the final piece of the puzzle in whether or not you can or should call your material possessions an blessing from the Lord. Are you USING them to bring glory to God, to accomplish His kingdom work? If you are hoarding the finances or other resources that you have merely in order to add comfort, security, or pleasure for your own self and family, if you have not chosen to use what you've been given to bring glory to God, then it seems you are acting much more in line with the final servant in the Parable of the Talents, the one who hoarded his blessing. He buried it in the ground to keep it safe and was ultimately rebuked by the Master, stripped of even what he had been given, and cast out into utter darkness.
I think it's far more important to talk about and think about the purpose of our blessings from God rather than to make seemingly arbitrary categories about what sorts of things could or could not be a blessing from God. If you're using your house to let others know how wealthy and successful you are, or if you're using your home merely as a hiding place for yourself, or if you have prioritized your house over following the will of God perhaps by acquiring the house through unGodly means, I agree, you shouldn't talk about your house being a blessing from the Lord. If, however, you acquired your house through Godly means and you're using your home as a place to minister to others, to grow in Him, and to give Him praise and glory, then Hallelujah! Why hesitate to call that home a blessing from the Lord whether it's a mansion or a cardboard box? God has given us different works to do. Our blessings will look different. There are different types of wealth, different types of resources. Different types and amounts and timing of blessings are necessary for the different works He has given to us at different times in our lives. Let's focus more on being faithful with what He HAS given us rather than comparing between ourselves or saying that one person's blessing can't be a blessing if someone else didn't have access to the same thing. Let's each of us rejoice with each other in the blessings that the Lord has given us because they have been given to accomplish His works and to bring Him glory.
My dear sisters and brothers in Christ, if you have just what you need in order to do the work that God has set before you to do, go ahead and call it a blessing! Whether it's a winning lottery ticket, an extra paycheck, an open morning, a troubled child, a shack, or a run-down car; our blessings don't look the same because our work is not the same. May those of us who are prosperous in this world not see prosperity as a pathway to comfort and luxury but instead may we commit to using our material good fortune to advance His kingdom work and to bring Him glory. (I had no idea this blog post was going to end like this when I started it. Oh, how often my attempts to blog end up in personal conviction! I'm going to have to pray about this one more. Am I using what He has given me well? Am I being a good steward? I know some areas that I can and should improve in this, things that I need to re-commit to using for His work. What about you?)
"Don’t be deceived, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows." (James 1:16-17)
"And my God will meet all your needs according to the riches of his glory in Christ Jesus.
To our God and Father be glory for ever and ever. Amen." (Philippians 4:19-20)
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