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What comes to your mind when you hear the word blessing? Do you see a picture of being poor, beaten up, weak, neglected, lonely or sickly?

And then, what does the word curse bring to your mind? Does it produce a picture of somebody smiling, full of happiness; a picture of prosperity and good health?

I am sure that nobody ever thinks of blessing as being a negative thing. And no one would ever dare to pray and ask for a curse. If we look to God for anything in life, it is usually blessing that we are looking for.

Even children know to ask God for blessing. And some people even greet one another with the words, "God bless."

God is the Source of Blessing

God is the author and the source of all blessing. He is not the author of a curse. That comes from a different source as we will see later. But first I want to look at the way of blessing that God has ordained for each one of us, His children.

Ephesians 1:3 says: Blessed [be] the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in [the] heavenly [realm] in Christ:

That one little verse is packed with so much power, that I will be sharing on it throughout this book. Let's look at what Paul is saying here.

Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

God is blessed. That is why He can bless others. If I wanted to bless somebody by giving them out of my abundance, I would need to have been blessed in the first place. How can I give someone else something that I do not have?

God is the most blessed person in the universe. If there is any kind of blessing that is available, you will find it with Him. Since He has every one of them, you need not look anywhere else.

You certainly will not find them in the Devil's camp. The Devil is not blessed. That is where the curse comes from. God alone is the fount of all blessing.

The next part of that Scripture passage says: ...the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ who has blessed us..

Notice the past tense in this passage. It does not say, '..is blessing us', or '..will bless us' or '.. might bless us if He feels like it.'

It also doesn't say, '.. will bless you if you are good enough.' It says, "He has blessed us."

If you examine the original Greek text there you will see something very interesting. The Greek tense that is used for 'has blessed' is a tense known as the aorist.

In our English language we have a past tense, but the Greek aorist is a special kind of past tense. It is a past tense that indicates something that took place in the past. It is not an ongoing process that is to be repeated.

So when Paul says here, "God blessed us," he is saying, "God gave us the blessing as a completed act."

If this is true, and we were blessed already, why is it that we often pray? "Lord bless us today."

Why do we sometimes pray something like? "Lord please bless this person who is suffering with sickness and give them healing."

Or we pray something like this, "Lord please will you prosper this person who is having financial problems."

If God has already blessed us, then why do we keep asking Him to bless?

I will be answering that question in some detail as we go through each chapter of this book. By the time we are done you will understand exactly what Paul was referring to.

Paul tells us that God has blessed us in four different ways.

No. 1: With All Blessings

You need to keep in mind that there is no blessing that God does not have. He has them all, so you will not need to go anywhere else. If He does not have them they are just not available.

Let's see what kind of blessings God has. Does He have sickness or poverty? No, those are not blessings at all are they?

Try to visualize what blessing looks like. Imagine a person that you would call blessed or that the world calls successful. Is success not a blessing?

Now that you have made up your mind what blessing is, you need to realize that according to this passage, God has given us ALL of them. Every blessing that God has is ours as believers.

No. 2: With Every Spiritual Blessing

Does this mean that we are only allowed to be blessed spiritually? Since 'things' are not spiritual, does this mean they are not included in the blessing? Can you expect God to bless you with temporal things?

Does it mean that you must remain poor? Since healing is a physical thing, does this mean you can't expect God to grant you healing?

That is what you might think when you first read this passage. But actually it means the exact opposite. I will explain this to you shortly.

No. 3: Blessings in the Heavenly Realm

What do you find in the heavenly realm? It is the place where God lives; the realm of the spirit.

Angels live in the heavenly realm. I have seen them often in spiritual vision, and I have never seen one that looked sickly or poorly dressed.

There are no curses in the heavenly realm where God lives. Those who have had a glimpse of heaven confirm that they have so much gold to go around that they just pave the streets with it.

And every blessing that exists in this realm of God has been given to you as a believer.

No. 4: In Christ

This blessing is not available to you outside of Christ. If you are not a born again child of the living God, then what I am speaking about does not apply to you.

The blessings have been given to us in Christ and in Him alone. Outside of Christ you do not have access to God, or to His realm and His blessings.

It is true that God can and will still bring His blessings to bear on the unsaved also. However, they do not have a right to those blessings in the same way that a born again believer does.

We will look at each one of these in more detail now to see if we can understand more about what God has in mind for us. Then we will look at how we can go about making this ours and receiving what He has for us.

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