Meet John Berry

Blessings . . . bring them! I’ll take more, not less. I have often thought that God giving me blessings is like giving the dog a treat. I give Rowdy a treat, he gulps it down, looks at me as though he never got it, and is ready for another just like I am. I get blessings from God, and I may thank him (or be so jaded that I don’t even recognize them), and then I’m immediately sitting up begging for more. In addition to this being a very ungrateful posture, it also does not consider the responsibility or purpose of God’s blessing.

In this psalm we gain insight into why God blesses us and the responsibility of blessings. Do you know the reasons God blesses us? I didn’t. Apparently, one of the main purposes of God’s blessing is to spread salvation to all the earth (verses 1-2). When God blesses us, we praise Him, acknowledge His fairness in judging us, and recognize His loving leadership (verses 3-4). All our creature comforts come from God (verses 5-6), and their perfect result is the world coming to salvation (verse 7): “May God bless us! Then all the ends of the earth will give him the honor he deserves.”

What? It seems like blessings direct us just like tough times do. The purpose of both is to get us in a right relationship with Him and to spread the gospel. Seem like a broken record? Is spreading the gospel always the answer? The truth is that God longs for all of us to be right with Him and to help others get right with Him as well. “The Lord is not slow concerning His promise, as some regard slowness, but is being patient toward you, because he does not wish for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.” (2 Peter 3:9) We are called to be stewards of God's blessings.