A God Who Loves to Bless

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We serve a God that loves to bless His people. His desire to bless His people

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is seen throughout the Bible, but I'm just going to reference two places,

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beginning with Abraham and with today's Torah reading. So welcome to this week's

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Shabbat Shalom devotional when I seek to share just a little inspiration and

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bring a little peace to the close of your very busy week. So this week's Torah

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portion is from the book of Numbers starting with chapter 4 verse 21

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through 789. And right smack dab in the middle of this week's reading is one of

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the most popular scriptures of the whole Hebrew Bible. This is what we call the

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priestly blessing or the Aaronic blessing. So let me go back in Genesis

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where God tells Abraham to follow him. He says that if you will follow me to the

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land I will show you, I will bless you and you will be a blessing and I will

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bless those who bless you and through you I will bless all the families of the

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earth. That is a whole lot of blessing and that shows God's desire is to bless

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his people. So now we have here in Numbers the children of Israel they're

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still in the wilderness in the Sinai Desert. They are preparing to enter the

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Promised Land and take possession of that promise that God had made to Abraham.

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But God is instructing them on various ways in the Tabernacle how to approach

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him, how to live in his presence because he's a holy God. And here he instructs

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the high priest Aaron to bless the people. That's God wants his people blessed

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and so he tells the priest to bless the people and to say this. It says that the

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Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face to shine upon you and be

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gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

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So shall you, speaking to Aaron, put my name on the children of Israel and I will

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bless them. Do you know that this scripture is the oldest Hebrew text from

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the Bible ever found? Yes there was a little amulet. You know an amulet is

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something that people would wear around their neck or on their body and they

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found an amulet from the first temple period which means it's from about 600

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BC which means it's about 2,600 years old. And what was written in it in Hebrew

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put inside that little amulet but it was these words taken from number six, the

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priestly blessing. Isn't that neat? Now the priestly blessing comes in pairs so

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the first blessing is may the Lord bless you and keep you. Blessing means a

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provision, maybe a financial provision or prosperity of some way a blessing to

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you but then may he keep you. In other words may he preserve you in that state

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of blessing that you not make a mistake, that you not take it for granted, that

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that you not lose it. So the Lord bless you and keep you. To shine His light upon

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you is like an intellectual thing and to give you grace along with that. That

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you would have His light to shine upon you, His light of wisdom, His light of

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knowledge, His light of direction in your life but also give you grace that

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if you don't follow it perfectly that His grace would be there. And then the

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third blessing is the Lord lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace.

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This countenance upon you is like His special relationship and that with that

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comes peace. Peace through covenantal love. When we walk in relationship with

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Him that's when we can really know His peace. Isn't that beautiful? Such a

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beautiful blessing. And you know every morning a religious Jewish man begins

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his Torah study with this very verse of blessing. So I want to share with you

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in today's show notes a link to a beautiful song and I want you to listen

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to it and just let the blessing of the Lord fill your heart and your life

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because you serve a God that loves to bless and He wants to bless you with His

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peace. With that I wish you Shabbat Shalom.