We do not deserve any of the blessings God blesses us with. We, as Christians, fall short all the time. Yet, God continues to bless us, because He is merciful and loving. God loves us despite our faults and flaws. If it was not for God blessing us and keeping us safe, who knows where we would be. The height of God’s favor and protection is demonstrated through the birth and death of Jesus Christ. Jesus is the way, truth, and life. He is the perfect example of how to live that’s pleasing to God. Jesus purchased our salvation by giving up His life on the cross for our sins. This alone shows us how we all are favored by God. If we accepted God as our Savior, we are forever favored and protected. A lot of blessings are taken for granted such as the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross. Other blessings which are often times overlooked is living to see another day, having food to eat, and clothes to wear. The Bible is filled with stories of blessings upon the children of God and unbelievers. I intend to present blessings and how its meaning evolves from the Old Testament to the New Testament.
THE OLD TESTAMENT DISCUSSES BLESSINGS DIFFERENTLY THAN THE NEW TESTAMENT
There is more emphasis on outward blessings or material blessings in the Old Testament. The New Testament helps us to focus more on the inward or spiritual blessings of God (Elwell, Walter A., 1997). God’s promise to Abraham that all people would be blessed through him is an early example of this idea of outward blessings. In Genesis 12:2, God speaks of prosperity in Abraham’s life making his name great and enlarging his territory through his descendents and those he fathers in the spiritual sense (NKJV). There are three main themes that attach themselves to the meaning of blessi...
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.... Last, the Old Testament uses prayers for God’s favor to symbolize blessings. The forgiveness of sins brings us closer to Christ so that we can experience an abundance of blessings. Sometimes we take for granted the blessings of having joy in times of sorrow, a peace of mind, all our needs met, and even our salvation. The New Testament brings attention to those things and helps us to recognize the greatest blessings of all. Sin is what separates us from receiving all that God desires for our lives. Grace and mercy allows us to still be blessed in spite of our sins. God’s forgiveness sets us free and puts us in position to receive more of the blessings that He wills for our lives.
Works Cited
Elwell, Walter A. "Entry for 'Blessing'". "Evangelical Dictionary of Theology". . 1997
Thornhill, A. Chadwick. The Resurrection Of Jesus and Spiritual Transformation…2012
God is sinless, loving, forgiving and full of wisdom. God’s love is shown throughout the Old and New Testaments. Many times throughout the Old
His grace and that each believer receives at least one. These gifts are different from the
The rattling story of Joseph told of a man who must struggle with the most horrid betrayal from his family in which he learned to forgive them and even helped them flourish in later life. Justified by a need to make them properly atone for their sins, Joseph put his brothers through hell and back. In the end, Joseph ended up feeling happier for reconnecting with his family and saving them from the ominous hands of the famine that plagued Canaan. Although it may seem that the Bible suggests exonerating those who have deeply wronged one shows weakness and too much leniency, forgiveness allows one to become a stronger person and allow for the restoration of bonds amongst once-close companions.
The most highly referenced and revered as sacred are The King James Version, considered a masterpiece of English literature, The Tanakh, or Hebrew Bible, The Aprocrypha, the books believed left out of some bibles, The Vulgate, the Latin Bible used for centuries by the Roman Catholic religion, and The Septuagint, the first ancient Greek translation of the Tanakh (Geisler and Nix 15, McCallum 4). The Bible is considered a sacred text by three major world religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Many believers consider it to be the literal truth. Others treat it with great respect, but believe that it was written by human beings and, thus is often contradictory in its tenets.
The Old Testament shows a variety of portrayals for God. God is shown as wrathful through the early chapters of The Old Testament yet also loving and merciful. While the initial creation of the universe shows that God created everything to be good (Gen 1:10). Humanity deviates from this good and has to face God’s wrath. The Old Testament shows a coherent portrayal of God throughout the text. God is shown as merciful and full of love, but can be wrathful in order to get humanity on the right cause.
"I will make of you a great nation…And you shall be a blessing…And all the families of the earth shall bless themselves by you" (Gen. 12:2-3). Israel is a blessing to the other nations. As long as Israel succeeds in informing other peoples and proving that Yahweh is God, it will be understood to be a blessing to these nations. The very examples often employed to dispel the idea of Israel's being a blessing serve as evidence to support it. The plagues in Genesis actually prove that Yahweh is God to the Israelites and the Egyptians. In the infamous conquest of Canaan, Rahab and her family are spared because she acknowledges that Yahweh is God. Joseph gathers food to feed the Egyptians during the 7 years of famine. Throughout the Hebrew Bible, the Israelites relationship with other nations ultimately leads its peoples to benefit by the realization that Yahweh is God.
Fulfilling, gratifying, pleasing, rewarding all describe actions and feelings concerning God’s Kingdom plan. He begins with one promise to one man, and finishes this promise with all people. The Promise, Law, Church, and Millennial/Kingdom dispensations which correlate respectively to the Abrahamic, Land, Davidic, and New Covenants come to a culmination within the Millennial Dispensation.
As a Christian one is led by the teachings in the Bible. By reading the Word of God we are compelled to act in the ways we do. For example, one of the most known aspects of the Bible is the Ten Commandments. People of the Christian faith follow these commandments in order to live a righteous life. Yet, if you are familiar with those Ten Commandments, you know that saying grace or blessing a meal is not written in these. So, where do Christians get the idea that they should say grace? As one studies the Bible, you will read various occasions were showing gratitude toward God blessed the individuals. An example of this is written in Matthew 15:36, “And He took the seven loaves and the fish and gave thanks, broke them and gave them to His disciples; and the disciples gave to the multitude.” Jesus did not want to send the multitudes away without food because they had followed him for three days with nothing to eat. His disciples questioned where they would get enough food to feed them. Jesus took what they had, gave thanks for it and fed four thousand men with leftovers. Of course, this may not have been solely on the fact that He gave thanks, but would it have been possible if He had not? Christians believe that God is the provider of everything. When something is give to somebody, one naturally shows his/her appreciation to the person who gave it to them. Saying grace is a gesture of appreciation towards
In Judaism, God is seen as having a contractual relationship with the Jewish people where they must obey his holy laws in return for their status of the chosen people. God rewards or punishes Jewish people based on whether they obey or disobey his will. In parts of the Old Testament, however, God does show mercy or forgiveness, and in later interpretations God’s laws such as the Ten Commandments are followed
As a surrendered life to Christ, my intentions on earth are good. However, I live a human life, wretched and sinful by the simplest measures perhaps unrecognizable to most, yet blatantly known to God. In this truth I find comfort. I know that no matter how hard it gets when attempting to behave as Jesus would have me in the face of any and all adversity, “God gives me Grace!” He already knows my heart and my failures even before I experience them. He set up a way for me to be redeemed and to overcome through His son, Christ Jesus. He did this for me through grace, and He offers His love and blessings to me regardless of me. I can’t buy God’s grace. I can’t gain God’s grace by doing good deeds. God freely grants it to me, and you, simply because He loves us, who are undeserving of His love. This act of grace is nearly unfathomable as a human being! My entire being melts to ground at His feet where I wade in pool of gratitude for this benevolent undeserving gift, His grace. The moment we start to think that we deserve His grace because we are good or righteous, is a moment when we are seriously misguided and in danger. We are not perfect. We are not God. The best of us are like filthy rags when compared to His holiness. “…all our righteous deeds are like a filthy garment; And all of us wither like a leaf, And our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” Isaiah 64:6
In the days of Christ’s life on this earth, believers did not have access to the Bible in its entirety as we know and are familiar with today. Believers in this ancient time period only had access to the Old Testament. However, through their access to the Old Testament, believers were provided a foundation for New Testament times. This foundation provided New Testament believers with the Lord’s established principles of right and wrong they were expected to follow. In addition, the Old Testament is overflowing with accounts of people whose lives exemplified the future life of Christ on this earth. These pictures allowed the Israelite nation to begin to have an understanding of why Christ needed to come as their Messiah and the work He needed to do on earth. Finally, there are common themes that are interwoven throughout the entire Old Testament. Three of these themes: transgression, redemption, and consummation point to the purpose of Christ’s atoning death on the cross. These themes portray God’s work both in the lives of Old Testament believers, but they also foreshadow God’s desire and plan for believers in New Testament times and beyond.
Lets use one of the characters in the bible as an example, Joshua. The kind of adversity that Joshua had to face had to do with the death of his beloved friend Moses, servant of the Lord. The wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our lord. Romans; 6:23. Joshua
...f God’s glory and for those that have questioned their faith. The book urges the reader to consider the sacrifices Jesus made, his role as a messenger and mediator, and the ability of people to find salvation through the acceptance of Jesus. These are central messages that other portions of the Bible touch on but do not discuss with the same degree or urgency.
The concept of redemption is pretty much the same in both the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. However, the writers of both testaments had their own interpretation as to this particular concept. This is the case of a concept that is as similar it is different as depicted by the different biblical authors because of the different settings.
Tarwater explains that even through the small snippet of information how “the God we serve in the New Testament is the same God who worked on behalf of the people of Israel in Exodus.” Through the last chapters, I began to appreciate Jesus’ teachings and the correlation to the commandments of the Old Testament. Before this book, reading through the Old Testament did not bring about the importance within the books of Leviticus or Numbers. However, the author’s strong statement “the laws were meant to demonstrate how obedience and holiness were to permeate every aspect of the people’s lives” highlights the nature of the Bible to be a continual work highlighting God’s mercy and forgiveness. Digging deeper into the context of the stories through the author’s visual narrative that I could see how the theme of each book extended into another. Ultimately, the book of Leviticus is clarified with the realities of how sinful the people are and why God had to ultimately bring to earth His son to take away our