We’ve all heard the words, “God bless you” several times in our lives. Many have a different interpretation and understanding of this expression. In this article I share the practical definition of what being blessed really mean. My hope is that, after reading this article, you will have a deeper understanding of the word “blessing” each time you encounter it in Scripture.
The first appearance of the word “blessed” is mentioned in Scripture. It is on the account of Creation in Genesis. It surfaces on the sixth day after God created mankind.
Genesis 1:28 NLT
Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”
From this passage, we can understand that being blessed has a connection with fruitfulness and multiplicity as referenced by the words “be fruitful and multiply”. When God said this, it was not solely limited to the reproduction of mankind. It includes production and multiplication in all ramifications and in all facets of life. To be blessed means to have the resources and the willpower to multiply and to be fruitful.
1. What Does Being Blessed Comprise Of?
The bible provides metaphors and similes to illustrate the elements that constitute to being blessed. The first blessing was regarding fruitfulness and multiplication. These blessings are symbolically represented by grapes/vines (indicating fruitfulness) and grain (signifying multiplication). Throughout Scripture, when blessings are being conveyed, grape (or vine) and grain are referenced. Some Scriptural references include the following:
- Amos 9:13, “The time will come”, says the LORD, “when the grain and grapes will grow faster than they can be harvested.”
- Genesis 14:18, “And Melchizedek, the king of Salem and the priest of God Most High brought Abram some bread and wine.”
- Malachi 3:11, Your crops will be abundant for I will guard them with insects and disease. Your grapes will not fall from the vine before they are ripe, says the Lord of Heavens armies.
- Hosea 17:7, My people will again live under my shade. They will flourish like grain and blossom like grapevines.
- Joel 2:19, The LORD will reply, “Look! I am sending you grain and new wine and olive oil enough to satisfy your needs.”
1.1 The Blessing Of Grain
Grain is a food group that primarily makes bread, other foods include rice, oats, bread, maize meal, cereal, pasta and many more. They form staple foods for people across many regions.
The blessing of grain represents having enough and abundant bread or food to eat. Grain preserves life, as our bodies need the nourishment found in grains.
1.2 The Blessing Of Grapes
Vines produce grape fruit; and grapes are used to make wine. Wine is a tasty beverage that when taken produces a feeling of joy, it also brings delight, lifting the heart and suppressing feelings of distress or other negative feelings. The blessing of grapes symbolize joy – the mental and emotional state of being content and satisfied with life, free from worry and anxiety.
To summarize, the blessing of grain and grapes represent food to nourish our bodies and wine, bringing joy and delight to our lives here on earth.
To take these symbolisms further, Jesus Christ is the embodiment of the spiritual fulfillment of both bread (grain) and wine. During the last supper, He offered His disciples bread and wine as symbols of His body and blood.
The blessing of wine (blood) represented the cleansing of our sinful nature (Matthew 26:28), that we may live a life of purity and holiness.
The bread represents Christ body (Matthew 26:26)- who is the bread of life. Christ’s body gives spiritual nourishment to our spiritual lives in the same way physical bread gives nourishment to our physical bodies.
1.4 The Blessing Of Oil
Oil, usually referenced as olive oil, is symbolic of the blessing of God’s presence. In the Old Testament, whenever someone is anointed with oil by a priest, the Spirit of God would come upon them. This has been illustrated in the lives of Saul (1 Samuel 10:1), David (1 Samuel 16:13), Solomon (1 Kings 1: 39) and many others.
1 Samuel 16:13 NLT
So, as David stood among his brothers, Samuel took the flask of olive oil he had brought and anointed David with the oil. And from that day on the Spirit of the LORD came powerfully upon David.
The blessing of oil is the spiritual empowerment and strength from God. Today, this is achieved by the Holy Spirit, as Jesus said in Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.”
The blessing of the Holy Spirit enables us to perform our divine purpose; it strengthens us to carry out awe-inspiring and miraculous works. Here are a few Scriptures that illustrate how the Spirit of God makes mere people like me and you perform miraculous deeds:
- 1 Samuel 10:10, When Saul and his servant arrived at Gibeah, they saw a group of prophets coming towards them. Then the Spirit of God came powerfully upon Saul, and he, too, began to prophesy.
- Acts 6:8, Stephen, a man full of God’s grace and power, performed amazing miracles and signs among the people.
- Luke 1:35, The angel replied, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most high will overshadow you. So the baby to be born will be holy, and he will be called the Son of God.”
1.4 The Blessing Of Man
The final and fourth component that constitute to the full blessing, is the blessing of man (or people). God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone,” and so He created Eve from Adam’s rib to be a blessing to him. Eve’s role as a blessing is that she helps Adam to be fruitful and to multiply – a command given by God to Adam.
You may have heard the saying “no man is an island.” It simply illustrates that God uses people to bless other people. The divine purposes of God are actualized in partnership with the men and women whom He has strategically placed in our lives.
The lame man at the pool of Bethesda is a powerful example of someone who lacked the blessing of people. He was unable to enter the pool quickly enough to receive healing and, as a result, remained disabled for 38 years. When Jesus asked him whether he would like to be made well, John 5:7 captured his response, “I have no man to put me into the pool”.
We need people in our lives; they help us in many areas. Jesus too needed a man to help him carry the cross on the way to Golgotha, illustrating the profound importance of people in our lives help us to fulfill God’s purposes.
Luke 23:26 NLT
As the led Jesus away, a man named Simon, who was from Cyrene, happened to be coming in from the countryside. The soldiers seized him and put the cross on him and made him to carry it behind Jesus.
2. A Framework For A Blessed Life
Having established the four key elements that make up a blessed life, here is a framework to illustrate and deepen our understanding of what it truly means to live in God’s blessing.
- The blessing of the Spirit represent the blessing of the power of God through the Holy Spirit.
- The blessing of man occurs laterally, forward and backward. As we traverse through life, we interact with people who make up our friends, colleagues, neighbors, members of our communities and places of worship. These individuals are divinely placed by God to serve our needs in areas where we lack. Likewise, we are also called to be divine helpers to others, positioned to assist them in fulfilling God’s purpose for their lives.
- The blessing of grain represent food, Jesus prayed, “Give is this day our daily bread.” The daily bread encompasses both food to eat for the nourishment of our physical bodies, and the bread of life, that nourishes our spiritual bodies which is the word God.
- The blessing of wine represents the blessing of a joy, happiness and peace. It is a life of emotional and mental strength, absent of worry, distress and anxiety.
3. Living A Blessed Life
When Isaac gave Jacob his blessing, it encompassed all three of the four elements:
Genesis 27:28-29 NLT
“From the dew of heaven and the richness of the earth, may God give you abundant harvest of grain and bountiful new wine. May nations [man or people] become your servants and may they bow down to you.”
Later in his life, Jacob received the blessing from God, after wrestling Him all night as accounted in Genesis 32:29. This moment marked the culmination of the full blessing. A blessing from above, below, and a blessing from people coming from all directions and nations.
Now let us use The Framework of a Blessed Life to determine how individuals from Scripture manifested the full blessing.
4. The Blessed Life of Adam
4.1 The Blessing Of The Spirit
The first blessing upon Adam was the blessing of the Spirit, the breath of life from God.
Genesis 2:7 NLT
“Then the Lord God formed the man from the dust of the ground. He breathed the breath of life into the man’s nostrils, and the man became a living person.”
4.2 The Blessing Of Grain And Wine
Adam was placed in the garden to work and cultivate it (Genesis 2:15). This would inherently include the cultivation of grain and grapes for food and wine. This notion, though not stated explicitly, is implied and revealed in Scripture as follows:
Genesis 2:16-17 NLT
“The Lord God placed the man in the Garden of Eden to tend and watch over it. But the Lord God warned him, “You may freely eat the fruit of every tree in the garden— except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If you eat its fruit, you are sure to die.”
4.3 The Blessing Of Man
When God created Eve from Adam’s rib, He was blessing him with the gift of man/people. Someone to help him fulfill God’s divine purpose.
Proverbs 18:22 TLB
“The man who finds a wife finds a good thing; she is a blessing to him from the Lord.”
The people in our lives are a blessing from God, they help and support us in difficult situations, provide pleasant company, we share fond memories with them and much more.
5. The Blessed Life of the Disciples and Believers in Christ
5.1 The Blessing Of Grain And Wine
During the Last supper Jesus gave his disciples bread and wine. As stated in the preceding sections, the bread represented Jesus body (Mathew 26:26), while the wine symbolized his blood (Matthew 26:28).
He elaborated this symbolism in John 6:53 which reads, “So Jesus said again, ‘I tell you the truth, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you cannot have eternal life within you.’”
Eternal life is living in the full presence of God the Father, and in His presence, there is fullness of joy (Psalm 16:11). This is all made possible by drinking the blood (wine) and eating the flesh (bread).
Therefore, Jesus is the bread that gives us eternal life in the joyous presence of the Father.
5.2 The Blessing Of Man
After his resurrection, Jesus spent 40 days on earth. In one encounter with the disciples, he asked Peter three times, “Do you love Me?” With each of Peter’s responses, Jesus responded with a command, “feed my lambs” and “feed my sheep” (John 21:15-17).
This was Jesus’ commanding Peter to be a blessing to Jesus’ lamb and sheep, which are his people. And it is no wonder Peter became the first apostle to preach to the crowds as recorded in Acts 2:14-41.
After telling Peter to feed his lambs and sheep, Jesus also illustrates the blessing of man in the following expression.
John 21:18 NLT
“I tell you the truth, when you were young, you were able to do as you liked; you dressed yourself and went wherever you wanted to go. But when you are old, you will stretch your hands, and others will dress you and take you wherever you want to go.”
Jesus was establishing the fact that we need the blessing of man to accomplish the purposes of God in our lives. Where we lack strength or wherewithal, God always blesses us with people who provide us with the resources that would cater to our needs.
5.3 The Blessing Of The Spirit
After Jesus ascended into heaven, he did not leave the disciples—nor us—alone. He gave us the gift of the Holy Spirit, the very Spirit of the living God.
Acts 1:5 NLT
“John baptized with water, but in a few days, you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.“
It is through the Holy Spirit that we are equipped with the divine empowerment as Jesus said in Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you.”
6. Final Remarks
A blessed life covers 4 dimensions of life:
- Spiritually through the blessing of the Holy Spirit.
- Relationally through the blessing of people in our lives.
- Emotionally and mentally through the blessing of joy.
- Nutritionally through the provision of food that nourishes of our physical and spiritual wellbeing.
Through Jesus Christ’s death, resurrection and ascension, we have been equipped with blessings in all these 4 directions.
I am grateful to God for the blessed life that we have: the blessing of family and friends, the deep joy in our hearts, and an abundance of nourishment—both physical and spiritual—to sustain our bodies and enrich our spiritual well-being. And finally, the blessing of the Holy Spirit, which leads and guides us in every facet of our daily lives.
Dear reader, the next time someone says, “God bless you,” don’t brush it off as just a cliché. God has placed individuals to declare blessings over your life. When others bless you, God Himself assures that He will bless us as confirmed in the Scripture below:
Numbers 6:27 NLT
Whenever Aaron and his sons bless the people of Israel in my name, I myself will bless them.
Read more on how to unleash blessings from God.
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