The Blessing: What God Desperately Wants You To Give Your Children And Grandchildren Series

Ashely Covington is a model. Yet, while you’ve seen her many times, you’ve probably never seen her face.

Ashely was a child actor and later was trying to make it in theatre while in college getting head shots when suddenly an acting agent looked at her and went crazy over her hands and said: “Forget your head; it’s all about your hands.”

She was told: “Your hands are beautiful. Go get a manicure!” She said: “That won’t work, I’m a nail biter.”

She says: “ In pictures I hold diamonds, pick up burgers, pick up diapers and make a great living because my hands are considered to be the most attractive hands in the world.”

She said, “But the weirdest thing is that they use my hands in movies and magazines for other people. I am the hands other people. Often actresses put their hands behind their back and my hands are tucked in front of their bodies. It is a wonderful reminder that my hands are more desirable than my face. :)

Transition:

The BCC recently ran an article and ranked the hand as the most beautiful part of the human body saying: “The hand is one of the most complex and beautiful pieces of engineering in the human body.”

I agree. Psalm 134 tells us that are hands are lifted to bless the lord. Proverbs 31 says that the godly women receives the fruit of her hands. I Timothy 2 says that we pray with our hands. Matthew 15 says we wash others feet with our hands. Colossians 3 tells us that we honor God when we work with our hands.

Yet, in today’s passage we read about Jacob blessing his sons and grandsons with his hands.

God makes it clear that our hands are an instrument of blessing and worship. The Bible tells us in Mark 10:16 that Jesus, “took the children in his arms, placed his hands on them and blessed them.”

In today’s see Jacob blessing Joseph’s children by placing his left hand on Manasseh’s head and his right hand on Ephraim’s head. Both he and Jesus placed his hands on children to bless them. What is this all about?

The blessing is a simple, Biblical, yet highly spiritual tool to physically do something that we can do for your children and grandchildren every day of your life.

You can give them your blessing.

Transitional: Let’s look Biblically at this call to give our blessing to our children and grandchildren, and see how we can start today. To get started we need to understand:

I. What does the Bible say about the Importance of “the Blessing?”

vs. 1-7- “Then Jacob said to Joseph, God Almighty appeared to me in Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me.”

Explanation:

The first time we see “the blessing” in the Bible is in Genesis 27. It is obvious that both Jacob and Esau desperately wanted their father’s blessing. It was so significant that Jacob walked away with it and Esau hated Jacob for years for stealing it away.

Esau actually lifted up his voice crying: “Bless me also.” (Genesis 27:38) Yet, he lived with an unfulfilled longing but also it was an echo of many people that live among us today; many people are longing for their father’s blessing.

Likewise, in Hebrews 11 we read something interesting about the passage we are reading today. It says: “By faith Jacob, we he was dying blessed each of the sons of Joseph, and worshipped leaning on the top of his staff.”

If you are a reader of the Bible, you will learn that the blessing was more than a nice thing to do before Jacob died. As God looked at Jacobs death bed blessing, he said it was an act of faith worthy of being placed in the “faith chapter” of the New Testament.

Think about it, Jacob blessing his children was just as important as: (Hebrews 11)

a) Enoch’s faith that caused him to be taken up escaping death. Vs. 5

b) Noah’s faith that built and ark for the salvation of his household. Vs. 7

c) Abraham’s faith that caused him to leave home and heading out to the Promised land. Vs. 8

d) Sarah’s faith that led her to conceive in her old age. Vs. 11

e) Moses faith that led God’s people out of Egypt. Vs. 11

f) Rahab’s faith that caused her to welcome the spies in peace. Vs 31

It matched the faith of Gideon, Barak, Samson, Jephthah, David, and Samuel. Vs. 32

The “blessing” is more than saying nice words at death or even before death. It is part of sharing your “God story” and letting them know that there’s a connection between your story and theirs.

Notice what happens when the time came for Jacob to pass down and connect his story in the early chapters of Ephraim and Manasseh’s story: