We need to Express God and Represent Him to be His Kingdom to Receive God’s Blessing

Our God is a God of blessing and we can receive God’s blessing; He wants to bless His people, and when His people become His kingdom as a sphere of God’s authority, He blesses us.

After Moses put before the children of Israel the laws, statutes, ordinances, and judgements by respeaking the law in Deuteronomy, he concluded by putting a choice before them: life and death, blessing and curse.

He exhorted them to choose life so that them and their children would live, and to choose God’s blessing.

What does it mean for us to choose life and not death? Why didn’t Moses said, Choose good, choose the right thing, choose to do what’s good and reject what is evil?

It is because we all have a choice between us today, just as Adam had it from the very beginning: life and death, blessing or curse.

There’s the tree of life and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; when we eat of the tree of life, we receive life and enjoy life by depending on the Lord; when we choose the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, we may do the right things and make good choices, but the result will be death.

The Lord Jesus also spoke concerning this matter when He first mentioned the church; in Matt. 16:18 He said that He will build His church, and the gates of Hades (death) will not prevail against it.

The church is an entity in resurrection; the church is of the Lord’s resurrection life, it is in resurrection, and it is a container of life and resurrection.

So Satan as the enemy of God wants to bring death into the church to damage the church.

Yes, Satan brings in sin, the flesh, the natural man, the world, and worldly pleasures and entertainment, but through all these things his final objective is to bring in death.

Many in the world today want to do the right thing and reject the wrong thing, to make good choices and reject the wrong ones, but we as believers in Christ should focus not on right or wrong, good or evil, but on life!

We should never go with our reasoning, whether something is right or wrong, but choose life, pay attention to life, and remain in contact with the Lord in spirit.

Our decisions should be based on the feeling of life within us; if the divine life in us is happy and rising, we should go along with it, but if we have the sense of death in us, or if we’re not clear, we should stop.

Blessed are those who follow the sense of life and who choose life!

God Desires to Bless His People; we need to Humble Ourselves and be in a Right Condition for His Blessing

Our God is rich, and He is rich in blessing; He wants to bless man.

We see this from the very first chapter of the Bible: in Genesis 1 God bestowed His full blessing on man, for man had God’s image and likeness to express God and represent Him.

Today we as the people of God want to be under His blessing, and the Lord doesn’t want to withhold anything good from us.

However, for us to receive God’s blessing, we need to be in the right condition; if we’re not in a proper condition before the Lord, God’s blessing cannot be bestowed on us.

So if the work is not going well, if the brothers and sisters are in a poor condition, if the Lord is not increasing us with new ones who are saved, and if we are not advancing in faith, we shouldn’t excuse ourselves or use the environment or people as excuse.

Instead of blaming others, we should look to the Lord concerning ourselves, our situation, and our condition.

The real reason for not receiving God’s blessing may lie with our harbouring some frustrations to the blessing.

If the Lord can get through in us, the Lord’s blessing will come, and His blessing will be even greater than our capacity.

The Lord once told the people of Israel to prove Him, whether He will open to them the windows of heaven and pour out His blessing until there’s no room for it (Mal. 3:10).

Our God is a blessing God; He wants to bless His people, and whenever we’re in the right condition for His blessing, He pours out His blessing until there’s no room for it.

God’s blessing is much more than we can do or achieve by our own endeavour or strength; it is much more than we expect or think of.

And our Christian life, a normal Christian life, should be a life under God’s blessing; our Christian work should be under God’s blessing.

When God blesses, we can just receive and enjoy, cooperating with the Lord by keeping ourselves in the right condition for His blessing.

But many times we labor much, we toil a lot, and we work really hard, but the result is very slim, there’s no bountiful supply, and there’s no overflow from the work.

If we don’t receive God’s blessing, we should be before the Lord and ask Him if we are the problem, if our condition is not right before Him.

For example, Naomi left Israel and lost God’s blessing, but when she returned, she was humbled and subdued under God’s judging hand, God’s blessing was brought in.

God’s heart is to bless us, but our questionable condition requires God’s judging hand. If we are willing to judge and condemn ourselves under God’s judging, we will meet grace and receive God’s blessing.

Lord Jesus, we come before You concerning our condition: we want to be in the right condition to receive God’s blessing. May our Christian life be a life under God’s blessing, and may our church life be under God’s blessing. Oh Lord, we humble ourselves under Your judging hand, and we are willing to judge and condemn anything in us that is under Your judgement and condemnation, so that we may meet Your grace and receive Your blessing. Amen, Lord Jesus, may You open to us the windows of heaven and pour out Your blessing until there’s no more room for it!

We need to Express God and Represent Him to be His Kingdom to Receive God’s Blessing

In Gen. 1:26-28 God blessed man to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it, because God saw on earth a living creature – man – bearing His image and having His dominion.

After God created man in His image to express Him and gave him His dominion to represent Him, He poured out His blessing upon man.

As long as there was a man that expressed and represented God, the condition was met for God to bless man. In order to be a blessing to His chosen people, God must have a kingdom, a realm, a sphere, on earth to exercise His administration under His full, divine authority (Matt. 6:10; Col. 1:13).

Because Adam was in that condition, having God’s image and dominion, God could bless him.

Unfortunately, man fell due to sin; God therefore came in to raise up a new generation with a new race, beginning with Abraham, and He promised a Seed will come, and in this Seed all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

Even with the children of Israel, however, God could not gain His kingdom; they continued to fail, coming short of God’s purpose, so God came to a man called David, a man after His heart.

God made a covenant with David that the seed of David – a type of the coming Christ – would build God’s house and establish His kingdom.

When Christ came, He announced the gospel by saying, Repent, for the kingdom of the heavens is drawing near! He didn’t say, repent for your sins, God loves you so please turn back to Him…no, He said, Repent, the kingdom of God is drawing near!

Man needs to repent not just because he’s sinful but because he’s rebellious; man sinned because he rebelled, and man’s rebellion is the root of his becoming sinful.

When we repent for the kingdom, we can enjoy God’s blessing. If there’s no repentance back to God for His kingdom, there’s no participation in the blessing of Abraham.

God’s blessing needs the condition of the kingdom, which is a realm, a sphere on earth for God to exercise His administration. Without such a kingdom, God doesn’t have a realm in which to accomplish His purpose.

But once there’s a kingdom, the kingdom becomes a realm, a sphere, for God to exercise Himself to bless us (Rev. 11:15).

We all want to receive God’s blessing, but we may not realize that the blessing requires a sphere of God’s authority, a sphere under God’s administration.

We may think that God’s blessing is related to outward and physical things such as a bigger house, a nicer car, a raise in salary, etc, but when God blessed man, He didn’t have these in mind – He wanted to bless man with Himself!

May we return to God and be His kingdom by expressing and representing Him so that we may be qualified to receive His blessing!

When God gains the priesthood (His expression) and the kingship (His dominion), He pours out His blessing.

When we contact the Lord daily to enjoy Him and be infused with Him, we are priests expressing God; this will qualify us to represent Him with His authority.

Then, we can receive God’s blessing. And His blessing is fruit-bearing, increase, multiplication, and filling the earth!

How much God is able to bless us depends on how much we express Him and represent Him; if we express and represent God in an adequate way, we will surely have His blessing in multiplication and fruit-bearing.

Lord Jesus, we repent and return to You with our whole heart; we reject rebellion and we come under Your rule and authority in Your kingdom! Amen, Lord, we are Your kingdom, the sphere and realm for Your authority, so that You may exercise Yourself to bless us! We come to You to contact You, be infused with You, and be filled with You as priests of God, so that we may express You in all our living. We submit ourselves under Your authority so that You may exercise Your authority over us. Lord, gain us as those who express God and represent Him to be under Your blessing!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by bro. James Lee for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Genesis, msg. 9 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Deuteronomy, week 12, Life and Blessing under the Government of God.
• Hymns on this topic:
  – God is a God of blessing and glory. / He is our history; we are His story, / Formed in His image, made to express / His life and nature, all to bless. / Showers of blessing come in their season. / Ask and God comes, abundantly given; / The God of hope fills us with all joy / That we’d abound, His pow’r employ. (Song on, God is a God of Blessing and Glory)
  – Is your life a channel of blessing? / Is the love of God flowing through you? / Are you telling the lost of the Savior? / Are you ready His service to do? (Hymns #928)
  – By reigning in His kingdom / God worketh all His will, / And under His dominion / His purpose doth fulfill. / ’Tis only in God’s kingdom / His blessing we may know; / ’Tis from His throne almighty / The stream of life doth flow. (Hymns #941)