{"id":4971,"date":"2016-04-05T06:00:43","date_gmt":"2016-04-05T13:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/devonline.us\/daily-e-votional\/?p=4971"},"modified":"2016-04-04T13:14:25","modified_gmt":"2016-04-04T20:14:25","slug":"the-blessings-of-blessing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/the-blessings-of-blessing\/","title":{"rendered":"THE BLESSINGS OF BLESSING!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"center\"><span style=\"font-size: 20px;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\"><strong><span style=\"color: #000000;\">Psalm 103:1-2<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<p style=\"text-align: left;\" align=\"center\"><span style=\"font-size: 16px;\"><span style=\"color: #cc3333;\"><em>\u201c<\/em><em>Bless &#8212; affectionately, gratefully praise &#8212; the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name!\u00a0 Bless &#8212; affectionately praise &#8212; the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all [one of] His benefits.\u201d<\/em><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/span><span style=\"color: #669900;\"><span style=\"font-size: 14px;\"><span style=\"color: #000000;\">(Amplified Bible)<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>The concept of blessing has come to hold more meaning to me than ever before.\u00a0 We either bless or curse with our mouths.\u00a0 I consistently stress that our actions speak louder than words.\u00a0 That does not mean we are to be silent; rather, we are to speak blessing into situations and then act in the manner that is consistent with our words.<\/p>\n<p>Many of us are familiar with the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7. Jesus began His public ministry by teaching the basic principles of a Godly lifestyle.\u00a0 The teaching begins in chapter five, with the Beatitudes.\u00a0 Each of the Beatitudes begins with the phrase, <strong>&#8220;Blessed are you.&#8221;<\/strong>\u00a0 The phrase sounds good, but do we really have an understanding of its meaning?<\/p>\n<p>The nuances of words can determine several different meanings. Just as the word <em>bless<\/em> in the above passage means to affectionately praise, so the term <em>blessed<\/em> in the beatitudes has more depth of meaning.\u00a0 In the Amplified Bible, it is rendered this way: <span style=\"color: #cc3333;\"><strong><em>Blessed &#8212; happy, to be envied, and spiritually prosperous [that is, with life-joy and satisfaction in God&#8217;s favor and salvation, regardless of their outward conditions].<\/em><\/strong><\/span> It goes on to describe conditions that we normally bellyache about.<\/p>\n<p>May God richly<strong> bless<\/strong> you as you <strong>bless<\/strong> <strong>others<\/strong> by your <strong>words and actions<\/strong>!<\/p>\n<p><strong>&#8211; \u00a0&#8211; &#8211;<\/strong>\u00a0<strong>Pastor Cecil <\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Psalm 103:1-2 \u201cBless &#8212; affectionately, gratefully praise &#8212; the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name!\u00a0 Bless &#8212; affectionately praise &#8212; the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all [one of] His benefits.\u201d\u00a0(Amplified Bible) The concept of blessing has come to hold more meaning to me than [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-psalm"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4971"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4971\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyevotional.com\/prior2020\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}