Joy and Blessings

By Odon Bulamba (summary only - 26 Sept 03)

What is joy?

God’s joy comes from the depth of your heart. It comes from inside and is emotional and spiritual but manifests itself in the physical. Some people are so full of joy they can fast for 40 days and not feel hunger! You can know a person is joyful because all the body is excited, he will have a smile on his lips and everything around him will please him and he will forget about his problems and will feel something is boiling in his heart and this makes him happy. When you don’t have joy though, even the smallest problem will feel like the biggest mountain and people can even become physically sick because of lack of joy (depression).

This is the first point to help a Christian to solve his problems. If you have a problem and need a solution, try to find joy in the Lord first. Joy in the Lord will make your problem very small and when this problem is minimised you will have enough time to think about it and act accordingly. So when you have a problem, don’t accept this problem to lead you to distress because if you lose your joy you will be very annoyed and you might not even find a solution to your problem.

Joy also helps in times of temptation. When you are tempted and you have the joy of the Lord you will always feel victorious and feel that God is with you. You will understand that this small problem will pass and you will be victorious. Many people when they have joy they don’t fear death. They say even if death would come now I would be ready to go and I would be in God’s kingdom today, because of joy only.

What does it mean to be blessed?

There are three topics we will talk about tonight regarding blessings:

1. God blesses us
2. We bless God
3. We bless others

Blessing first of all is eternal.

1. God blesses us

In Genesis 24:35 we find an example to see how God blesses His own. This is Abraham’s servant that talks, ‘God blessed my master and he found material goods’. We can all ask God to find material things. God is able to give us material things if we ask him and this will be a blessing. So when I need clothes or a house or a car, or camels I am entitled to tell God, ‘give me and I want you to give me. I won’t buy it or ask anyone but I want you God to give it to me’. How does God give us material things? Sometimes through other people and sometimes miraculously.

So if I need something, it’s important to pray in this way, “please God bless me with....” E.g. if you need more work or a better job, ask God to bless you with more work rather than just saying, please give me more work.
This is the first way and through that people will start testifying that you are blessed. When men look for things there are always limits. But when God blesses men get more and the blessing too can be given to our families. God bless my children so they might know you. God bless my husband so he might be saved. God bless my brother or sister so they might see God’s hands in their lives and this is a prayer of freedom. Freedom comes from blessing. When you want to set free someone who is sick, or in distress, of course to use the name of Jesus is good but ask for God’s blessing first. Say to God may your blessing be in the life of this person.

Genesis 1:32, when God met Adam He said be blessed and multiply and this multiplying keeps going today. Up to today we keep seeing Adams descendents. When God gives a blessing, nobody can stop it. The devil can never stop it and men can’t either. So please ask for the blessing every time you pray and there you will be really victorious.

2. We Bless God

Psalm 103:1,2. First of all God blesses man and it is up to us now to bless God. What does it mean to bless God? To thank him for everything He has done in your life; physically and spiritually. Tell your soul, my soul bless this Lord. Bless the Lord for all he has done for you.

What is your soul? It is life. Our lives must bless the Lord and to bless the Lord is to be thankful for what He is doing. So the soul that is alive must absolutely bless the Lord. If you want more you must give. If you give God blessings, God in his time will bless you too. But if you don’t bless the Lord you will be blessed of course but not to the point you will be very joyful. And the Bible says that whoever will bless Israel I will bless him also. Israel means to fight with God. When you go through difficulties and you want God to do something and you bless God during that time you will be really blessed.

Genesis 31:55, in the morning Laban woke up to bless his children. Early in the morning we must absolutely bless others. Oh god bless this man, bless my wife, God bless my family, my children I bless you, my husband I bless you this morning may God be with you during the day. It’s better to bless our children, our husbands and wives and every body else with us in the morning without forgetting God. Amen!

3. Bless Others

Numbers 6:23-27, so if you want the name of the Lord to be on the life of your brother or sister, if you want your life or surrounding to be blessed, the formula is there. It is very simple. It doesn’t take 15 minutes prayer and if you don’t know this one by heart, open your Bible and read it and you will tell God I want to bless Michelle, oh Michelle may the Lord bless you. May the Lord shine on you, may the Lord give you his peace, may the Lord give you his grace and may the Lord’s hand be with you and that is it. This is the blessing that she gets, whether she wants it or not, she gets it. She might accept or not, but this blessing is given. Blessing is like rain, when the rain falls even if the ground isn’t ready for it or it is already wet, nothing will stop the rain. The ground will not be able to stop the rain and that is the same thing with blessings. Even if you bless someone who is in satan’s camp or if you bless a problem that is so big to you, nobody will stop this blessing and God will be over this person and God will be over everything that you blessed. Don’t minimise yourself, don’t say no for me it won’t work, try and you will see. And if you want it tonight, try it and you will see the result. Blessing is not a gift from God, to say that I don’t have this gift, to say this gift belongs to Michael only it’s not mine, no blessing is for everyone. If you believe in God you are here to bless and your blessings will be blessings. The blessings you give will really be given and God will fulfil.

We have to remember though that God’s blessings are sometimes different to what we consider a blessing. Eg. I once asked God to bless me to have wisdom in my way of talking and He blessed me with a headache that was so severe that I could only say the bare minimum and I understood that God was helping me to learn what is and what isn’t important to talk about.

Another girl I once knew asked God to bless her so that her parents might come to church and she got cancer in her leg and because it amputated so high, she could no longer find her own way to church and her parents were obliged to take her and praise God because they were now going to church.

So let’s not think negatively when things are not going the way we think and let’s not tell God He has cursed us but remember to praise Him and bless Him and thank Him for the blessings He gives us even if we can’t understand at the time why we are crossing such a hard situation.

We are going to pray and bless whatever and whoever you want, bless yourself, your family, your friends and don’t forget to bless God and we will see what God will do.

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