The Commanded Blessing Part 2 – Lawson and Aaron Perdue

Praise God, friends, I’m so glad that you’ve tuned in. We’re talking today about the commanded blessing. If you want to walk in the blessing of God, it is a necessity that you get a blessed mentality. You’re gonna have to begin to believe what God says about you. And in this broadcast, we’re gonna give you very practical ways to move into a blessed mentality. So stay tuned. Friends, I’m so glad that you’re with us, and we’ve been sharing on the commanded blessing, and we talked in the broadcast yesterday about how the blessing is part of the covenant of blessing. And Abraham was a blessed man. God told him, “Hey, I’m gonna bless you. I’m gonna make your name great. I’m gonna bless those who bless you, curse those who curse you, and in you shall all the families of the Earth be blessed.” That’s in Genesis 12:1-3. But when we go to Galatians 3, we find out that we are the seed of Abraham by faith in Jesus Christ. So we inherit the blessing of Abraham by faith in Jesus. So the blessings of Abraham are ours. My doctor started coming to this church, and after a period of time, he’s a spirit-filled believing doctor, and he said, “Thank you for giving me back Deuteronomy 28,” because religion had taught him that that’s no longer ours. But do you know what? These promises are ours if you read the Bible, but a lot of times people think what they think, and it not really consistent with what the scripture says. And we need to get back to teaching what the word of God says.

Well, and you have to believe that it’s yours too. You have to really have a revelation of it. It’s not just enough to just say it or to hear it. The Bible says you gotta be doers of the word and not just hearers only deceiving yourselves. And that’s in James and the Bible talks that in the last day, there’s just gonna be a lot of deceit. A lot of people who are deceived, even people who say they’re believers will have a lot of deception. And the Bible talks about strong delusion. There’s a lot of strong delusion in the world today. But to understand this blessing, the commanded blessing, it’s not just to hear it or to say it, but you have to live it. And it has to be a revelation to you. And I like looking at the person of Abraham. We’ve been talking about the blessing of Abraham that is ours through faith in Jesus. Abraham, he wasn’t a perfect person, right? He had flaws and he didn’t just live in this oasis where just everything was just automatic. He dealt with some difficulty, and in Galatians 14, there were these enemy kings that came to the Sodom and Gomorrah area and actually just ransacked the place, stole away his nephew Lot, whom he cared deeply for.

And Abraham, if he didn’t really have that relationship with God, if he was like a lot of people today, he’d just say, “Well this is just God. The Lord gives, the Lord takes away.” And just bye-bye, Lot, it’s God’s will. No, and he actually understood this is the enemy. This is not God. I’m a friend of God. And he didn’t just blame God and say, “Well God’s just trying to teach me something.” No, he actually got his 318 servants that were trained up in his own house, man, talk about someone who’s blessed. He had 318 servants. Some of you might get offended if someone has one servant. Abram had 318 here. And not only that, he armed them, and he went after Lot. He went after these goods. And he came back in victory.

We used to sing this song, I went to the enemy’s camp, and I took back what he stole from me. And when you realize there’s a God who wants to bless you, but the devil, it’s the devil that comes to steal, kill, and destroy. You can go take back what the devil tried to take from you. You don’t have to just suffer, and a lot of people just lay down and play dead. And some of it’s because we don’t, a lot of times, teach people the truth of the word of God. I fell asleep one time watching Christian TV and when I woke up, there’s this famous preacher, and he was on there, and he’s preaching, “If you got houses getting foreclosed, just thank God.” No, don’t thank God. It’s not God that foreclosed your house. Poverty is the work of the devil. And he said “If you just got a, thing from the doctor that you have cancer, just thank God.” No, you don’t thank God for cancer. You stand against cancer, cancer’s part of the curse. In Deuteronomy 28:27, it talks about emrods or tumors. Cancer is a tumor, and Christ has redeemed us from the curse. But see, a lot of people just lay over and play dead and say-

They don’t play dead. They become dead. That kind of teaching will kill you. If Abraham didn’t have this revelation of the blessing, he would’ve just let those enemies kill Lot and his family, he’d let those enemies eventually kill off him as well. If you don’t stand up to the enemy, it’ll come to you. Abraham realized that if I don’t stand up and put up a fight, they’re gonna come for all my goods too. So he went and he took back what the enemy stole. And it says when he was coming back with Lot with all these goods, this is Genesis 14:18, it says then Melchizedek, the King of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was the priest of God most high. I love that name for God, God most high. And he blessed him and said, “Blessed be Abram of God, most high possessor of heaven and earth. And blessed be God most high, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.” See, it was God that helped him fight. Those were the enemies. Cancer is an enemy, poverty is an enemy. Sickness is an enemy. Addiction is an enemy. Affliction is an enemy. Oppression is an enemy. Anxiety is an enemy. And God wants to deliver you from those enemies. And it says that Abram gave him a tithe of all. There are some people who preach against the tithe, they’re idiots. Tithing is an awesome thing. There’s so much blessing, so much promise, so much just incredible things attached to the tithe. I don’t believe that you tithe in order to be blessed. Notice that Abram was taught, he was blessed first, and then he tithed as a faith response to that. And so he gave him a tithe of all. And it says now the King of Sodom said to Abram, “Give me the persons and take the goods for yourselves.” And Notice what was happening here. There’s this king from Salem who is a righteous king. His name means my righteous king, my king of righteousness. And that was contrasted by the king of Sodom, who I guarantee was a wicked king, because Sodom was a wicked place. And he led people in wickedness. So there are people that want to attribute the blessing on your life to their own selves. But the blessing of God, it’s so incredible, so profound, so abundant. It always points to God. It doesn’t point to anyone else. Ultimately, your boss can’t take credit for it. Your family can’t take credit for it. Where you went to school, they can’t take credit for it. A politician can’t take credit for it. A lot of politicians wanna say, “Well you wouldn’t be anywhere without me. If you don’t vote for me, you’re not gonna get anywhere. You’re gonna be oppressed if you don’t vote for me. Be very afraid if you don’t vote for me.” This king of Sodom was very worldly king. He wanted to get credit for that blessing on Abram’s life. But Abrams said this in verse 22. He says, “I have raised my hand to the Lord, God most high, the possessor of heaven and earth.” Notice he’s speaking that blessing, that Melchizedek just spoke over him. To God most high, the possessor of heaven and earth. That is the exact wording of that blessing that was just spoken to him by Melchizedek. And he said that “I will take nothing from a thread to a sandal strap, and that I will not take anything that is yours, lest you should say, ‘I have made Abram rich.'”

So Abram did not want some worldly king. This was not Melchizedek, this was the king of Sodom, to take credit for the blessing of the Lord on his life.

The blessing of the Lord, it’s not about you, it’s about God, it’s gonna point to God. When I’ve studied the blessing, this commanded blessing, it’s ultimately to point to just show how good God is, to show just how incredible having a covenant with him is. So Abram said, when people look at my life, when they see the number of cattle I have, the number of servants I have, when they see, someday that I’m gonna have this miracle child by the name of Isaac, it’s gonna point to God, only God could have done this.

Aaron, I remember when we first went to Rice University after you’d been there for a period of time, but you had this scripture from Genesis 14 posted on your headboards of your bed. And it said, “I am blessed by the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth.” And I just started rejoicing. And it wasn’t long after that that you paid off all your college debt. You have a half a million dollar education. You got your undergrad from Carnegie Mellon University, your master and doctorate from Rice University, but it was all paid for the day that you graduated. And not only that, you started an online business while you were in college and saved up enough money to put about 50% down on a house here in Colorado Springs because you believed God. And when you start believing what God says about you, when you start believing what the scripture says about you, it’ll change your life.

Yeah, and it’s that revelation. It’s not just saying the right things or hearing things. You have to have that revelation of it. And a lot of people I think don’t quite have revelation. It’s not become a reality to them, but it has to be a reality to you deep down in your heart, deep down in your spirit, before you see it on the outside. When I received that revelation, it didn’t look like it on the outside. I was really struggling financially and kind of in a low place in life. But when you receive supernatural wisdom and revelation from God, it changes things. When you get revelation of what you have in the spirit, and you get that revelation in your soul, your body, your outward realm will change and come. The picture on the outside of you will come look like the picture on the inside.

It’s gonna change the scenery around you. Jesus said your faith, you’re gonna be able to talk to mountains and they’re gonna be moved. He’s saying the scenery’s gonna change.

Hallelujah. Some of you right now need a change of scenery, and you have been in your mess long enough and you have been blaming other people, blaming your boss, blaming certain things in life, maybe blaming a family member, blaming some other person. And you need to quit blaming these people and start believing God. And if you’ll start believing God, it won’t be long until you’ll begin to see a change in the outward realm because there’s a change that has taken place not only in your spirit, but in your soul.

Amen, so we’re gonna take a short break. If you want to call and receive prayer right now, call maybe to make a gift, we’re here ready to receive your calls. But stay tuned, we’ll be back right after this break.

Friends, 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. We had the blizzard of a century, and I had over 3,000 cattle scattered around the country. Most of them were in Lamar, Colorado. But what God told me to do, he said, “You need to look at what you have and not what you lost.” And as I did that, God brought me completely out of that. Friends, I’m so glad that you stayed with us. We’ve been talking about the commanded blessing of the Lord. And we were sharing from Melchizedek. When Melchizedek blessed Abram, after he went after these kings that had taken Lot and robbed these goods from Sodom and Gomorrah and took Lot and his family. And he went and got them back. And we talked about taking back what the devil stole from you. Don’t just lay over and play dead and let the devil steal, kill, and destroy from you. Believe what the scripture says. And some of this is because we don’t have the right mentality. So when you get born again, you’re actually already blessed in the spirit. But you’ve gotta renew your mind, and you’ve gotta begin to think like God wants you to think. And the way that you renew your mind is by going to the word of God and seeing what the scripture says. And you know what, many times we don’t receive this all at once, but it just, it’s a process. And so I grew up in a traditional church. We didn’t believe much of anything. We knew we were saved, but that’s about it. We were just kind of hanging in there and hoping to God we made it. We used to say one foot in the grave and one foot in a banana peel and hope to God you made it. But then, I got saved when I was just eight years old. But then I got baptized in the Holy Spirit and Andrew Womack’s Bible studies when almost nobody knew Andrew Wommack in 1978 in Lamar, Colorado. And you know what, when I went to those Bible studies, one of the first things that came to me is I’ve got a Bible full of promises that I can believe, and I don’t have to be sick and poor and defeated by the devil. And my family was struggling with a lot of sickness, poverty, and defeat. But I began to read the scripture and I said, “Hey, it’s God’s will for me to be blessed.” So that’s the first aspect. But then I found out, did you know what, in the realm of finances, for instance, you can believe God for specific amounts of money, just like you can believe it. And that didn’t happen until 1994. So that in 1970, so that was 16 years, we’d been pastoring at that point in time for six years in Eastern Colorado. Aaron, you would’ve just been seven years old. But I’ve got a revelation of that, that not only does God want to bless me, and there are these promises, but I can believe God for certain aspects and realms in the area of finance. But then in 1998, so this is 20 years after I first found out from the scripture that it was God’s will for me to be blessed, God’s will for me to be healed, God’s will for me to prosper, I went to Mark Hankins’ meetings in Denver, Colorado, and Mark was preaching some things that just really challenged me. And you know what, he was talking about taking the limits off of God. He was talking about owning nice things. And you know what, I believed for increase in the area of ministry, but I didn’t believe really for increase personally. And when I left those meetings, I just didn’t know. And your mom told me, “Mark is right and you’re wrong. You need to get over it.” And I went and prayed later that next week and God spoke to me and said, “He is right and you are wrong. And you do need to get over it.” And you know what? I changed my thinking. I accept it. Some of you need to repent. And I’m not talking about sin. I’m talking about changing the way that you think. Because repentance not only means to turn away from your sin, repentance means to change your thinking. And you’ve been thinking thoughts of sickness and poverty, thinking that God keeps you poor so He can keep you holy. And you’ve been thinking that, God is the one who’s putting sickness on you, which is nothing but a pure lie from the devil when you understand what the gospel says, when you understand what the scripture says. So once I did this and change my mind, I got a hold of some scriptures and I began to pray these scriptures in Psalm 115. And we’re gonna read some of them in this scripture and Psalm 112 in this teaching. And I began to pray these scriptures and Deuteronomy 28, the blessings, and put my name in it and personalize it. And I prayed them for three to six months like every day. And it literally changed the way that I thought. And I began to operate in a completely different level of blessing. And you know what, God is not a respecter of persons. He’s a respecter of faith. And so we were talking about this Melchizedek blessing, which is repeated here in Psalm 115. But Aaron, why don’t you read these scriptures and you comment all you want to here. Psalm 115:9-16.

It says, “Oh Israel, trust in the Lord. He is their help and their shield. Oh, house of Aaron, trust in Lord, he is their help and their shield. You who fear the Lord, trust in Lord. He is their help and their shield.” I just love thinking about this. We’re talking about the blessing, But it all comes down to your relationship with God. I liked when you were saying that some of you need to repent, maybe not from sin, but from wrong thinking. Really repentance is to bring you back in that right relationship with God. And if you think someone that you’re in a relationship with like harms you or put sickness on you or wants you to be defeated, that’s a terrible relationship, that’s a terrible mindset. And some people actually have that mindset with God. They think their relationship with God is like that. And God is not like that. Some people have terrible relationships because they have the wrong mentality. And some believers, they have the wrong mentality. And you need to have a right relationship, a healthy relationship with God, right? Abraham was a friend of God, friends don’t hurt friends, friends don’t put sickness on friends, friends don’t rob from friends. Abraham was a friend with God. He had a healthy relationship with God. A lot of believers don’t really, they’re really not friends with God because they think they attribute these things to God that are really from the enemy. I have two children, a 3-year-old and a 10-year-old, and I have to tell my 10-year-old, “Stay away from mean kids, be friends with nice kids.” I have to teach them how to be friends. And a lot of people think God is a mean person.

Well they got the wrong image of God, and it’s because do you know what-

But He is our help a lot. He is our shield. He surrounds us with favor like a shield. He doesn’t surround you with sickness or disease, affliction, fear, he surrounds you with favor. That is just the unmerited, undeserved goodness of God.

Read verse 12. Go on down.

It says verse 12, “The Lord has been mindful of us. He will bless us. He will bless the house of Israel. He will bless the house of Aaron. He will bless those who fear the Lord both small and great.” I love that, it doesn’t matter who you are, how big you are, how small you are, how important you are, the blessing of the Lord, it’s not about you, it’s about God, it’s about His goodness. It doesn’t matter if you’re educated or uneducated, it doesn’t matter if you’re living in a city or in a small town, the blessing of the Lord, it’s greater than location, it’s greater than your background, amen. It says, “May the Lord give you increase more and more, you and your children.” There is increase in the blessing of the Lord, and also the blessing of the Lord, it’s greater than you can contain. It’s gonna affect your children, it’s gonna affect people close to you, it’s gonna affect your family around you. It’s gonna affect them. May you be blessed by the Lord who made heaven and earth. Man, he made heaven, or he possesses heaven and earth. Man, the blessing, Lord, it’s so profound. When He hits you with it, your mama’s gonna feel it.

I like that when He hits you with it. I had this person that came here to the church, and you know what? He was living in a Suburban with his wife and three children when he started out, didn’t have a job, he started believing God got two jobs, and a little bit had a house. And then in two years, the second year, he was here at the church. He gave $5,000 as a Bible school student to the church. And I would have him take up my offerings. I mean, it was a big deal back in those days. And you know what, he went then and left and started a church down in Black Oak, Texas. His name is JD Link. His wife’s name is Christa. They have a great church there, Abundant Grace Fellowship. And did you know what? In a little bit after he went to that town, he had nothing, but he had a building completely paid off. We’ve got this building where we’re at completely paid off. This is the third building that we have either built from scratch and paid for. And you know what, we had them paid off. The first one paid off when we moved in, the second one paid off a little bit after we moved in. And this one, which is a huge deal, we had paid off in a little bit.

There have actually been several people who’ve been trained up here. You’ve sent out to help start churches, and JD Link, Max Cornell in Kansas City, Brian Clark in Greensboro, they all own buildings. They all have great churches. That’s your spiritual children. That blessing, it hit you, but it was felt by your kids. Verse 16, the heaven, even the heavens are the Lords, but the earth, he is given to the children of men. That means we need to do something.

That means we have authority. Heaven’s God’s place, but this earth is our place. A lot of people think, “Well this earth is the devil’s place.” Satan is the God of this world, but he’s not our God. He’s not lord over us. We have authority on this earth in the name of Jesus. And when we find out what the scripture says, we can start taking authority. And when you find out what the word of God says about you, change your thoughts, and then take authority and start living like the king’s kid you are, Psalm 112 says this, when we start in the very first of it, praise the Lord. Blessed is the man who fears the Lord, who delights greatly in His commandments. His seed shall be mighty on the earth. The generation of the upright shall be blessed. Wealth and riches shall be in his house, and his righteousness endures forever. When we came here to this town, Aaron, we had almost no people and no money. And we moved in a house with almost no furniture. And we took debt on it to start out when we were here. And did you know what? I walked around our house and I spoke these verses, from Deuteronomy 28, the first 14 verses, Psalm 112, the first four verses, and Psalm 115 that we just read. And in a little bit, our house filled up with nice things. And I told your mom, I said, “This is crazy. we don’t make that much money. We’re just starting this church, we owe this house payment now, it’s a lot larger. And yet our house is filled up with nice things.” She said, “How can that not happen when you walk around and speak those words?” There is power in our tongue. There is power in our mouth. And when you understand what the word of God says, and start saying what God says about you, the surroundings, amen, you said it, they’ll change.

And some of you need to partner with the right people too. This ministry, we really understand who God is. We really understand our covenant with Him through Jesus. And some of you just hang around a bunch of turkeys, And you’re wondering why you’re not going anywhere, why you’re not flying, maybe it’s time for you to partner with someone who’s an eagle and you wanna soar to greater heights, you wanna experience. God’s blessing in your life. Stop just gobbling with the turkeys and make partner with some eagles, some people who really understand who God is, the blessing of the Lord, and just have some revelation. So I’d encourage you if you’re ready to soar, partner with some eagles that that can soar. So if you’d like to make a gift or become a partner, give us a call. We also have a lot of free downloads on our website. You can go to our website, get more of this teaching.

It’s free of charge.

It’s absolutely free of charge, you can go to our website, receive those things. But I encourage you, start partnering with some ministries that are gonna take you higher. Give us a call if you’d like to do that today. We love you. If you need prayer, you can give us a call as well. But we’ll see you again soon. God bless you.

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.

Friend, we here at Charis Christian Center and “Grace For Today” believe in being good stewards of the resources that God has given us. So we pay a professional service that’s actually available to help you do that in a couple of ways. Number one, you can make a will absolutely free of charge with professional legal help. And number two, you can go to Tax-Smart Ways of Giving. You can find them all on our website. Friends, it’s great to have you with us today, and I want to invite you to attend services with us at Charis Christian Center in Colorado Springs. The atmosphere is amazing. Recently in one service, I had people from 10 nations and several states, they watch us on a regular basis online and they said, “This is amazing.” So if you can’t come physically, come and attend online at Charis Christian Center or YouTube. Blessings.

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 PO Box 63733, Colorado Springs, Colorado, 80962. See you next time on “Grace For Today.”