The Commanded Blessing Part 1 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue

Praise the Lord. Friends, we are beginning a brand new series today on the “Commanded Blessing.” This is a teaching that I have taught. It’s also a teaching of my son, Aaron’s. But you want to get ahold of this truth. Did you know what? God wants you to operate in the blessing, to live in His blessing so you can be a blessing to people around you here on the earth and make a difference in this world. Friends, it’s so good to have you today, and I’m glad to have Aaron. We’re teaching actually from a teaching that you’ve taught, but also it fits in with the teaching that I’ve taught on the commanded blessing of the Lord. And thank God we are blessed with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ. That’s what the scripture says in Ephesians 1:6. But a lot of people don’t realize this. When we study the New Testament, and we’re gonna be jumping into this, this is Aaron’s notes, but in Galatians chapter three, it talks about the blessing of Abraham and how we are the seed of Abraham through faith in Jesus Christ. So this Abrahamic covenant is actually, we inherit the promises of that covenant through faith in Jesus.

Yeah, and I love what Paul writes in Galatians 3:13. It says, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.” So Jesus, when he died on the cross for us, he actually became the curse for us. He took the curse upon him so that we could receive this blessing. But the curse, you know, if you read the curses in the Old Testament, the curses in the law, specifically the curses in Deuteronomy 28, they include poverty, they include sickness, they include defeat, and just all this stuff that a lot of people actually attribute to God. Even today, believers attribute a lot of these things to God. And you know, I just saw, actually just yesterday, a very famous, well-known minister who, his whole message is based upon what God puts on you and teaches you through trials. And I thought, you know, how silly that that is. And even in his bio it says that that is his life’s message.

And that is not the truth. You know, the Bible actually talks about tempted, but it says this in James One that the Lord doesn’t tempt any man with evil, neither can he. And the reason is because God is 100% good. And in Jesus Christ, we are blessed and we are not cursed. I love this that you’re saying Christ has already purchased us from the curse. And when you read the blessings and the curses, I read both of them because I wanna see what I’m redeemed from in Deuteronomy 28. So there’s 14 verses of blessings and then 54 verses of curses. And I read the blessings to see what God has given me in Christ. But I read the curses to see what God redeemed me from. And God put the curse on Jesus so God would be wronged to Jesus to put this evil, death, destruction on his people.

And it said Jesus right here. It’s plain as day. Jesus redeemed us from the curse. He bought us back. He paid for it. So why would anyone attribute these things to God when Jesus paid with it with his own blood? You know, saying that these things that are curses, you know, sickness and disease and affliction and poverty, and to say these things are from God. It’s like spitting on the cross. It’s ridiculous ’cause Jesus shed his blood for us.

It’s not scriptural, it’s religion. And a lot of times people are full of religion and things have been taught in the church to try to make people feel good rather than to get them to believe what the scripture says. But when you start believing what the Bible says, what the scripture says, then you can start receiving what God promised you.

Well, we’ve talked about this before, ’cause a lot of people teach that and get into it, and it’s very popular amongst a lot of people. So people are attracted to things that are popular and people that are popular and people that have a message that’s popular. But you know, you need to know the Bible. You need to know who God really is. People who say these things come from God don’t know who God really is. They don’t know God for themselves.

That’s not the true nature of God. You know, the fact is that God is good and he’s always good. And right there in James chapter one where it says God tempts no man with evil. It goes on to say, “Do not err, my beloved brethren. For every good and every perfect gift comes down from above, from the father of lights with whom there is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.” That means if it is not good and it is not perfect, it could not come from God. And Jesus said, “It’s the thief that comes to steal, kill, and destroy. But I’ve come to give you life and life more abundantly.” And that’s in John 10:10, Jesus plainly accounted evil to the devil. And we should see it’s not only God. There is a devil. You know, there’s a heaven to gain, a hell to shun. There’s good that comes from God. There’s death and evil that comes from the devil. And we need to know the difference between the two.

Yeah, and a lot of people say, “I’m blessed,” but they don’t really know what that means. You know, what does it mean when you say, “I’m blessed by God,” what does that mean?

Yeah.

A lot of people don’t know.

So there’s so many blessings. And you know what? A lot of times people don’t know. And I preach on these promises and these blessings and somewhat offend people and people get offended. But at the same point in time, people that believe it and start receiving it, it changes their life. We have a family here in Colorado Springs that helped us start this church. They were drowning in debt. They had consumer debt, debt on their house, all these different things. And I came and encouraged them when I first came here to start believing God to pay off their debts and to pay off their house and to start a savings account. And they called me last week and they said, “Pastor Lawson, this would’ve never happened unless you would’ve encouraged us. But we started believing God. They were just rejoicing when you told us to. And we paid off our house, and we have no consumer debt, and we have no debt and we have a savings account.” But see, a lot of times people criticize us for preaching the promises, but if you’ll believe them, you can start receiving them.

Yeah, when you’re blessed, the blessing means to prosper spirit, soul, and body. It means to tap into divine health.

It means to have this relationship with Jesus, to have peace, to have joy, to be blessed financially, to not be just a slave to poverty, but to have an abundance. You know, the Bible talks about having an abundance in 2 Corinthians 9:8, to have an abundance for every good work. How many churches do you know that have an abundance that aren’t just in debt and just pleading people to get out of debt?

Well, a lot of people have a debt mentality. And you know, I know this is in your notes, we may not get to it today, but you’re talking right now that we are blessed and we’re gonna move into the commanded blessing. And part of the Abrahamic covenant, you know, in Deuteronomy 28:8, it says, “I will command my blessing on you, in your storehouses and all that you do.” And praise God, we don’t, and you read it says you will lend and not borrow. And I’ve borrowed some money. I borrowed some money to start. You know, when mom and I got married, I borrowed money to buy homes. I borrowed money to buy livestock and different businesses. And I still have a little bit of borrowed money, but that has helped me grow and increase. And I do not have this debt mentality. When I borrowed, I borrowed so I can pay it off and move forward. And I try never to borrow money on something that is depreciating in value or depreciates in value over a long period of time.

Well, part of the blessing too, when you study scripture, part of blessing is a supernatural release of debts. If you’re really just trapped by debt, maybe it’s credit card debt, even a mortgage that’s just really, really, just weighing you down, you can believe God to supernaturally pay things off and pay them off faster than what you might initially thought possible.

Yeah, I do wanna say this because I’ve borrowed money, I actually owe money on my home. I got a locked in rate that I locked in during the COVID pandemic and I make on my investments between 10 and 20%. And this loan is at the lowest rate I’ve ever heard of at a fixed rate. And so to me it just makes sense to use that, right. And if you’re gonna live in a place where there’s a growing economy, where there’s a growing population base, homes over a long period of time go way up. And actually one thing that you can do to get ahead financially is you can buy a home. And if you’re not buying one for yourself, if you’re paying rent, you’re probably buying it for somebody else.

So I think this is just a great message for everyone watching today. You know, I actually had a lot of student loan debt years ago when I finished my master’s degree. And I believe God that I would pay that off like super fast within a year. And I had $30,000 in student loans at the time. And God helped me pay that off in one year. I didn’t have a job yet. It was just a miracle how it happened. But I worked hard. I was very–

Believed God.

Believed God and applied myself, but it was a God-thing and it happened super fast.

Yeah, I remember you calling me about six months in and you said, hey, you know, I said within a year, right, you’ll have this debt paid off and you said, “I’m gonna believe God. And I’m gonna pay it off in six months.” And you called me just short of six months and said, “I just paid the last payment. I paid this off and I am debt-free.” And you believed God and God’s helped you. And you know, the thing is, God is a respecter of faith. He’s not a respecter of people. But if you will believe in the blessing of God, you can begin to receive these things in your own life.

Yeah, so just going back to Galatians 3:13, “Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us. For it is written, ‘Cursed is everyone who hangs on a tree that the blessing of Abraham,'” so the reason why Christ redeemed us and he hung on that tree was so that we could have this blessing, “that the blessing of Abraham might come upon the Gentiles in Christ Jesus that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” So we have this same blessing that was spoken to Abraham. Actually, the gospel was spoken to Abraham.

Right, it says it right here.

God spoke the gospel to Abraham. Jesus said, “Before Abraham was, I am.” You know, Jesus was making a very bold statement that he was eternal. And he actually said that Abraham saw my day and rejoiced in it, he was glad in it. Abraham saw Jesus, he saw the gospel. And there is supernatural blessing in the gospel. And that blessing, it’s full of blessed, the gospel’s full of blessing. It’s full of multiplication. And it’s for all the nations, and all the nations of the earth will be blessed.

Right, you know, all the promises of God, the scripture says are yes and amen in Christ Jesus to the glory of God by us. God gets glory when we walk in the promises. But yet so many people don’t actually know what the Bible says. And we’ve watered down the truth so much in the body of Christ that when people preach truth, when they preach the Bible, a lot of people don’t even really know what the Bible says. And so they criticize people sometimes, but at the same time, the people that believe it, it brings them to a new place. We’re gonna take a short break. Feel free to call in for prayer during the break. We’re gonna be right back and continue to share on this message. Friend, we’ve been sharing on “The Commanded Blessing,” but I have a lot more to say about the blessing of the Lord. In fact, I have an entire series on this, and it’s downloadable audio. It’s free of charge. You can get it on our website. So go there. Also, I have a great book on provision, releasing supernatural increase in your life. I hope you get these resources. Blessings. You know what, I’ve had a lot of opportunities along the line to get discouraged, to get disappointed, to quit believing. But there’s one thing I know, I’m gonna keep believing God. The fact is God said it and that settles it. And you can believe it and begin to receive it, or you can doubt it and do without it. But God said it and that settles it. Friends, I’m so glad you stayed with us. We’ve been talking about how we are redeemed from the curse in Christ Jesus. And we are blessed with the blessings of Abraham. And it says this, if you go before that here in Galatians 3:6, it says, “Abraham believed God and it was accounted or imputed to him for righteousness.” When you believe on Jesus as your Lord and Savior, you receive the righteousness of God by faith in Christ Jesus. And it goes on, and it says this in verse seven, “Know ye, therefore, that those who are of the faith, the same are the children of Abraham.” So when we believe on Jesus, we get to enter into this covenant that God made with Abraham. And boy, you study Abraham, Abraham was a blessed person, And God told him, “I’m gonna bless you, and I’m gonna make your name great. And I’m gonna bless those that bless you and curse those at curse you. And in you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” In Genesis 12:1-3, and right here, Aaron, jump into verse eight, because it talks about it, and you were just talking about this right there before.

It says, “And the scripture, for saying that God would justify the Gentiles by faith, preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand saying, ‘In you all the nation shall be blessed.'” So that is part of the gospel, that is essentially the gospel that this incredible blessing that comes through faith.

Right, so when people are telling you that God is the one who’s testing you with evil, death, destruction, sickness, poverty, all these things that don’t come from God, did you know what? They’re not preaching the gospel. They’re not telling the truth. It goes on to say this in verse nine, “Then all day, which be of faith, if you believe on Jesus, if you’re a person of faith, are blessed with believing Abraham.” It says here in the King James faithful, but one translation says believing. If you’ll believe the gospel, you’re gonna receive these blessings. Now we move on down, and it says this in the end of this, we talked about to begin how in verse 13, how Christ redeemed us from the curse, how he became a curse. So God would be wrong to Jesus to put any part of the curse on us as believers. It’s like Jesus already paid for it. It’s like double jeopardy. And so when we believe on Jesus, we receive the blessing and we’re blessed. We have this blessed nature. But it says here in verse 26, “All of you are children of God by faith in Christ Jesus.” We’re members of God’s family. We’re members of God’s house. He says, “For as many of you have been baptized in Christ to put on Christ, it’s not about Jew or Greek, it’s not about slave or free or employee or employer, it’s not about male or female, it’s not about gender, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ, then you’re Abraham’s seed and heirs according to the promise.” So when we start thinking about this commanded blessing, we receive all these promises that God made to Abraham.

And I love talking about the commanded blessing now that we’ve kind of established what the blessing is. And it’s not just saying, “Well, I’m blessed,” but it’s understanding that you have a relationship with God and that he is completely good and he wants his goodness for you. And that’s why he sent Jesus to die on the cross for us so that we could receive salvation, we could receive forgiveness of sins, we can be made righteous, we could be blessed, we could be healed. All these things are part of the blessing and it’s part of our relationship with God. It’s part of why Jesus came. And then when you understand that, you can understand this next level to it where there is actually a commanded blessing where God has commanded his blessing on you. And that trumps everything, that trumps what’s happening in the world around us, that trumps what’s happening in the economies around us, that trumps what the enemy tries to do. You know, we actually have a covenant of blessing.

Yes, and right here in Deuteronomy 28, we find the blessings and the curses of the law. And there’s 14 verses of blessing and then followed by 54 verses of curses. And I read all these things that I’m redeemed from. I read not only the blessings, praise God, but I read the curses now. When you read this in Deuteronomy 28, it was conditional on their behavior or their performance. What we understand when we read that in Galatians is these promises are conditional now on Jesus. And Jesus performs so that we can receive them, right? And now when we believe on Jesus, we inherit these promises by faith in Jesus. And so he says, “All these blessings will come on you and overtake you.” And he says, “as you listen to the voice of God,” he said, “you’re gonna be blessed,” in verse three, “in the city and blessed in the field, you’re gonna be blessed with your children, blessed in your fields, blessed in your cattle, your business and the increase of your kind, your kind of whatever it is, and the flocks of your sheep.” I say, I’m blessed in my children, blessed with my wife, blessed in my church. Praise God, but flocks? I’m blessed, you know, with everything I have. In your basket, in your storehouse. You could say that’s your refrigerator and your bank account. My bank accounts are blessed.

Well, notice, some of these things that he’s talking about being blessed, like your flocks, your cattle, these are things that can multiply, things that can grow and increase.

You know, we need to be connected to things that can be multiplied and increase, you know? The blessing the Lord, it’s not just about you. You know, some people get off and they don’t like this message on the blessing or like being taken care of financially because they think it’s selfish. The blessing of the Lord is not about you. It’s to point to God in his goodness. When people look at the blessing of the Lord on your life, it should point people, it should testify of who God is. It should draw them closer to God.

And it’s so that we can be a blessing. You know, Deuteronomy 8, in Deuteronomy 6, 7, and 8, God told the children of Israel, when you come into this land, right, into fields that you didn’t plant, into vineyards that you didn’t grow, into olive yards, into houses that you didn’t build, filled with silver and gold that you didn’t put there, when you come beware lest you forget God. And he says this in verse 18, “But you shall remember the Lord your God for it is he who gives you power to get wealth that he might establish his covenant.” God wants to bless us as people of faith so that we can go and help establish the covenant of God in the earth.

So it takes money, for instance, to preach the gospel. You know, for instance, we’re building churches in India. We built a feeding center in Congo, Africa, and it cost thousands of dollars and we partnered with the ministry and did a gift match. And now they feed 12 over 1,200 single moms and children every day of the year. And they can feed them all in this one feeding center. And they’ve got other things too. But you know what? It takes money to do these things. And we’re preaching the gospel. We have people that were delivering Bibles into Iran. Now there’s a major revival going on in Iran. Many people are coming to Christ. And it takes finances to do that. And anyway, he said all these different things. “You’re gonna be blessed coming in, blessed going out, your enemies come against you one way and run seven ways.” But verse eight, we’re talking about the commanded blessing, and this is what we’re talking about today is that the commanded blessing is part of God’s covenant, a covenant of blessing. “The Lord will command the blessing on you in your storehouses,” Deuteronomy 28:8, and in all you set your hand to, and he will bless you in the land that he gives you.” Praise God, we need to know the land that God has given us. It’s a good land.

Well, and I love that, you know, talking about the land that God has given you, this is talking about ownership.

Right.

You know? A lot of people never own anything. They’ve never owned their own car, they never own. I believe that God’s blessing, some of you that haven’t owned hardly anything, I believe that God is gonna bless you and you’re gonna step into an ownership type role.

Amen.

Where you’re not being owned, but you’re gonna own some things. You’re gonna accomplish some things, and that blessing is gonna be upon it. So that commanded blessing, I like to look specifically at what it’s on. It’s on you. It is on you. The blessing of the Lord is on you. That commanded blessing is on you personally. It’s also in your storehouses. So that means you need to have some storehouses, you need to have a bank account, you know, some investments, something that you can contain some things with.

We have storehouses. We have storehouses personally. We have storehouses in the ministry and we use them so that we can bless a lot of people. You know, Andrew Wommack actually told me years ago, he said, “Lawson, you should read this book.” It’s by certain pastor called the “Storehouse Principle.” And this is before our ministry was really growing. I mean it was beginning to grow, but we didn’t have a lot of people, we didn’t have a lot of finances, we didn’t have our own building. But he said, “You remind me of this person.” And you know, it’s come to pass. and we’ve got, praise God, storehouses, and we’re gonna have more.

And there’s a commanded blessing on them as well.

Yes. Anyway, he goes on and he says this, he’s gonna bless all you set your hand to, and it says in verse 11, Deuteronomy 28:11, “the Lord will make you plenteous in goods.” You know, the modern English version, which I really like, says this, “The Lord will make you overflow in prosperity.” God wants us as his people to not just have enough to get by. God wants us to live in the overflow. But you gotta start somewhere.

And I love too that there’s a commanded blessing onto all to which you set your hand. You know, a lot of people are trying to find the perfect job, the perfect thing to do. But when you understand that the blessing of the Lord is on you, and it’s that commanded blessing on every, you can do anything. You can work at McDonald’s and be blessed. You can work at a church and be blessed. Well, whatever your hand touches is blessed. When you pray over your kids, they’re blessed. When you pray over people at the grocery store and you lay your hands on them, there’s that commanded blessing.

Praise God.

I love that. And it flows into the New Testament. Whatever you set your hand to, these signs will follow them that believe. They will lay hands on the sick and they’ll recover. That’s because there’s a commanded blessing on everything to which you set your hand.

I wanna read one more verse here in verse 12, Deuteronomy 28:12. It says, “The Lord will open unto you his good treasure, the heaven to give rain to your land in his season and bless all the work of your hand and you shall lend to many nations and not borrow.” That’s what we’re doing here at Charis Christian Center. We are sowing into the nations of the world and we’re not borrowing, praise God. We are a debt-free ministry. Now we use credit card just to pay bills, but we pay them off every month in full. We never carry a balance, praise God. We do them because of the benefits also because it helps us keep good account of what we’ve done in certain areas. But praise God, we are blessed and we have storehouses. You know, that’s what the church really is. The church is a giant storehouse. So Aaron, share with them about the website, and what we have available.

Yeah, and actually, we’ve done a lot to kind of increase the exposure of our website. We have thousands upon thousands of people that come to our website. And a lot of people come from messages specifically like this, messages on the blessing, messages on prosperity and healing because not a lot of people are preaching it. So if you want more of this kind of teaching, go to our website. We’ve made it all free for download. If you’d like to call in and support this message, support this ministry, this is great ground to sowing. You can make a gift or become a partner. Just give us a call. You can go to our website for all these free resources. If you need prayer as well, give us a call. We’d be happy to pray for you and just believe for that commanded blessing to come on your life and overtake everything in Jesus’ name.

Narrator In Pastor Aaron’s message, “The Commanded Blessing”, discover how Jesus redeemed you from every curse and how God’s supernatural blessing is chasing after you. Learn to walk confidently in the fullness of his promises. We’d like to bless you with your own digital copy of “The Commanded Blessing,” a $5 value free of charge. Don’t wait. Embrace the blessing that’s already yours. Go to charischristiancenter.com today.

Friends, in the last few months, we have heard from over 50 nations in the world. People from all around the world are downloading our curriculum, our syllabus, our downloadable audio, and downloadable video teachings, our confession cards, and all of these great teaching materials. And you can go receive it too at charischristiancenter.com. Receive these resources and be blessed. Hey everyone, I wanna invite you today to subscribe to the Charis Christian Center YouTube channel where you can get hundreds of hours of teaching and different materials absolutely free. We livestream all of our services there and so check it out, Charis Christian Center on the YouTube channel. Thanks so much and have an awesome day.

Narrator Thanks for watching Grace for Today. This broadcast has been made possible by our faithful partners. If you would like to become a partner, need prayer, or have a question, please call us at 719-418-4000. Or to partner online, go to charischristiancenter.com/give. You can write us at P.O. Box 63733, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80962. See you next time on Grace for Today.