Here’s how you can bless the Lord in 4 simple steps.
by Kenneth Copeland
In recent years, the Body of Christ has received great revelation about how God wants His people to live in The Blessing. It’s growing, and taking us all to new levels of faith every day. I go to sleep every night thanking the Lord for what He will show me tomorrow about The Blessing. Can you tell I’m excited?
But right now, I want to think about another issue: How we can bless God.
What does it actually mean to “Bless the Lord”? Believers do have the capacity to earnestly lift up the declaration “Bless the Lord” in praise. But, have we had a complete understanding of what that means?
Let’s take a look at the words of the Apostle John to see how God desires The Blessing to work out in our lives and how we can bless Him. “The elder unto the wellbeloved Gaius, whom I love in the truth. Beloved, I wish [pray] above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth. For I rejoiced greatly, when the brethren came and testified of the truth that is in thee, even as thou walkest in the truth. I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth” (3 John 1-4).
#1 Understand God’s Will for You
Look at that phrase, “Beloved, I wish above all things….” The cross references in the King James Version, and many other translations, note that it can be better translated, “Beloved, I pray above all things….”
So what we have here is an elder in the Church—who had experienced The Blessing manifest in the earth as he walked at Jesus’ side—telling one who had come up under his ministry what he prayed for most: “I pray above all things that thou mayest prosper and be in health, even as thy soul prospereth.”
What John prays for Gaius by the Holy Spirit is a direct revelation of what our heavenly Father desires for us. So, before we go any further, let’s make sure we understand what that word prosper means.
Prosper means “to excel in something desirable.” We get additional understanding from the Hebrew word shalom, which is translated throughout the Old Testament as “prosperity.” Shalom is also translated as “peace” and as “wholeness,” literally meaning “nothing missing, nothing broken.”
Understanding what God desires for us, let’s go back to our definition of prosper: “to excel at something desirable.” Excel brings the word “high” into the definition; excellence means “the highest quality available.” To prosper, then, would be to go to the highest place available, or desired, in every area of life.
#2 Understand God’s Covenant of Prosperity
When God spoke The Blessing over Adam in Genesis 1:28, He said, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth, and subdue it: and have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth.” We understand now that God intended Adam to reproduce the Garden of Eden throughout the earth—to spread the highest level of creation.
We can track The Blessing of God from Adam right down to Jesus—and right up to us. The Blessing is God’s covenant of prosperity—a covenant that assures we would not have anything missing or broken in our lives, a covenant that bestows life on the highest level. Adam gave up the covenant, but, “Bless the Lord,” Jesus fulfilled it in His day, and we have received the responsibility and the power to fulfill it in our day.
#3 – Receive His Provision
Only by understanding the word prosperity can we understand the word bless, which means “to empower to prosper.” To bless the Lord is to empower Him—to give Him the open door to do what He has said is His greatest desire: to see that there is nothing missing, nothing broken in our lives.
We don’t bless God by just knowing what He has provided and what He desires to do in us and through us. God is not going to be satisfied until His complete prosperity—the Garden of Eden—is manifest in the life of His Church throughout the earth. We bless Him by stepping out and receiving His provision, so that we can walk in full manifestation of The Blessing.
#4 –Praise Him for What He’s Done
I know the Body of Christ is ready for this day of The Blessing. We are exploding right now with the desire to excel—to come to the highest place possible. We are receiving the fullness of manifestation of what Jesus regained for us through His shed blood.
So, go ahead and bless the Lord with your praise! As David said in Psalm 103, “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits” (verses 1-2). Look at all those benefits in Psalm 103—health, forgiveness, redemption, lovingkindness, tender mercies, good things, renewed youth and so much more! Those benefits describe life in the Garden of Eden! Those are the benefits that God wants people all over the earth to be enjoying—to be living in!
Just think about it! And “Bless ye the Lord, all ye…ministers of his, that do his pleasure…bless the Lord, O my soul” (Psalm 103:21-22).
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