The Commanded Blessing – Part 1 Lawson and Aaron Perdue

  Praise the Lord, friends, and welcome to the broadcast Today, I’ve got my son Aaron on with me. We’re gonna be sharing on the commanded blessing. And when you get a revelation of what God has done for you in Christ, that you are blessed by the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth, it will revolutionize your life. So open your heart and receive God’s good word today. Bless you. Friends I’m so glad you’re with us today. And we’re beginning a brand new teaching on the commanded blessing. And really when God has blessed you and you understand that commanded blessing, the devil can’t stop what God is doing. And we’ll be sharing on that later in the week. But open your heart and receive God’s good word today.

 

  Awesome. Well, I’m really excited to share with you today about the commanded blessing. Years ago, God just really showed me that I was blessed. You know, the blessing isn’t based upon your circumstances, it’s not based upon your relationships with people. It’s not based upon what family you come from. It’s not even based upon what house you live in or what apartment you live in. It’s not even based upon what you have in your bank account. The blessing of the Lord is based upon if you believe on Jesus, if Jesus is living his life in you and through you. And if you have Jesus living on the inside of you, you are blessed, scripturally you are blessed. And when you get a revelation of that, that changes everything.

 

  Amen. You know, if you’re born again, you’re blessed. I have a good friend, and he says this, “There’s only two kinds of believers, the ones that are blessed and know it, and the ones that are blessed and don’t.” And when you know it, when you know what the word of God says, it will literally cha transform your life. Amen.

 

  So I wanna share from Galatians 3, starting in verse six. We see that every believer, everyone who’s put faith on Jesus is blessed. Just like Abraham was blessed, Abraham was one of the most blessed people during his lifetime. And he was blessed because he believed on God. He believed on the promises. He believed really in the gospel, the gospel is preached to Abraham. And the blessing is part of the gospel, which is really exciting.

 

  You know, God made a covenant of blessing with Abraham. This is found in Genesis 12:1-3 is the first time it was recorded in the scriptures, this covenant of blessing. And that was about 2000 years before Christ. And before that in scripture, there’s only about three times that God, it says that God bless man in the original creation. It says that in Genesis 1, and then also in Genesis 5. But when Abraham comes about 2000 BC, so Adam’s fall was about 4,000 years before Christ. So for 2000 years of history, it’s only recorded about three times that it says that man’s blessed. But when you get into Abraham, when God makes this covenant of blessing with Abraham, he tells Abraham Genesis 12, “You’re blessed.” Genesis 13, “You’re blessed.” Genesis 14, “You’re blessed.” Genesis 15, “You’re blessed.” Genesis 17, “You’re blessed.” Genesis 22. And it goes from Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, then it goes to Joseph, then to Jesus, and then to us. And we’re blessed in Christ. So we have a covenant, a blessing. And that’s what this is really talking about in Galatians 3. We’re blessed through faith in Jesus, Aaron. So go ahead and if you wanna read those scriptures beginning in Galatians 3:6,

 

  It says, “Just as Abraham believed God and it was accounted to him for righteousness, therefore know that only those who are of faith are sons of Abraham.” So we see that Abraham, what made him righteous was that he believed in God. He believed in the promise that was spoken to him. And and the same is true today. When you believe on Jesus, the promised one, you’re blessed, you’re made righteous. So Christianity, you become righteous. You have rights standing with God by believing on Jesus. It’s not a system of rules and regulations. A lot of people think that Christianity is just a list of dos and don’ts, but really true Christianity is believing on Jesus, allowing Him to live His life in you and through you. And you’re gonna live a better life than you’d ever possibly imagined. So, you know, the scripture says the kingdom of God. It’s not meat and drink. That means it’s not just a system of rules and regulations, but it’s righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Ghost. And we see that Abraham was made righteous by believing in God. So you’re made right before God and you can live that abundant life that He promises us through Jesus by believing Him.

 

  Amen. Aaron, this reminds me of something that had happened when I was 14 or 15 years old. One of my neighbors was driving me home. We lived about 10 miles out in the country north of Lamar, Colorado. But he said, “Well, I’d be a Christian, but I can’t do it.” And I said, “Well, it’s not about what you do, it’s about what Jesus has done.” And you know, nobody can really do it. And that’s exactly what you’re saying. The scripture you just quoted was Romans 14:17. The kingdom of God is not meat and drink. It’s not religious rules and regulations, but it’s righteousness, peace and joy and the Holy Ghost. You’re right with God, you’re in right standing with God because you believed on Jesus. And from that comes peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. And it’s not about performance. And in the Old Testament, they were focused on their performance. And that’s why they were up one day and down the next and up and then down. And when you’re focused on your performance. And the sad thing is that a lot of teaching today in the body of Christ is focused more on our personal performance than the performance of Jesus. But when you understand that it’s by faith in Jesus that you’re made righteous and that He’s changed you on the inside, you begin to live right, and you go, instead of going up and down, up and down, you just go forward in your relationship with God.

 

  That’s awesome. I love that it says that those who are of faith. So if you’re a person of faith, if you believe on Jesus, you believe that He’s Lord, that God raised Him from the dead. It says that you’re a son of Abraham. So you’re a part of the family of faith, you’re part of the household of faith. And when you’re part of that household, there’s great blessing attached to being a part of the household of faith. So in verse 8, it says in the scripture, “For seeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith.” So gentiles are anyone who aren’t Jewish people. So even people outside of Israel, the nation of Israel can come into that blessing through faith. So it says, “God would justify the Gentiles by faith.” So today we’re justified by faith. That’s the only way you’re made, right? That’s the only way your sins are forgiven is by putting your faith on Jesus.

 

  And that’s the only way anyone has ever been justified before God. Abraham was justified by faith in the Old Testament. And anybody who was blessed in the Old Testament is because they believed God. It wasn’t because they performed well, because all of us failed to perform well at times. And that’s what Paul’s really hitting at here in Galatians. It’s not about performance, it’s about faith. And you know, I like something, Aaron, you said a while back in church, you said, “The only righteousness that we’ll ever really have is the righteousness of Jesus. And the only sin that Jesus ever had was our sin.” And so that’s talking about being completely right before God. It’s not about what we do, it’s about who we believe. And when you believe Jesus and He changes you on the inside, you begin to live in a different way. But it’s not so that you can please God. You please God because you’re righteous, because you believe Jesus. It’s faith that pleases God.

 

  Amen. So here in verse 8, it says in the scripture, “For seeing that God would justify the Gentiles by faith preached the gospel to Abraham beforehand.” So the gospel has actually been preached all throughout scripture. Actually the gospel has preached in Genesis 3 to Adam and Eve to the serpent. There God said, “The seed of this woman is gonna crush the serpent’s head.”

 

  Hallelujah.

 

  That was the gospel.

 

  Hey.

 

  So you know, Jesus was the lamb slain before the foundations of the world. So the gospel has been around for all eternity. The gospel has preached to Abraham beforehand saying, “In you, all the nations shall be blessed.” So God wants every nation, every person to be blessed. And you’re blessed through faith. Just like Abraham put faith in the promise. We can put faith in the promised one, Jesus. And the blessing is part of the gospel. You know, a lot of people get upset when you talk about the blessing or you talk about provision or healing, which is all a part of that. It’s part of the gospel. If you’re preaching the gospel, it includes all that. So it shouldn’t offend you to talk about the blessing how God wants to take care of you. And really there should be abundance in your life.

 

  You know, Satan keeps a lot of people poor and broke and defeated because they don’t know the truth. And the Bible says, “My people are destroyed for a lack of knowledge.” But when you begin to hear the full gospel and the truth of the gospel, you can be blessed. And I love this verse right here in verse 9, here in the next verse from where you’re reading, it says, “So they who are of the faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.” And I really love another translation of this. It says, “Those who of the faith are blessed with believing Abraham.” Amen. We’re blessed because of faith. That’s exactly what the gospel says. And he goes on and says in verse 10, “For as many as or of the works of the law are under the curse.” If you are trying to get the blessing by your performance, it’s gonna bring you under the curse. Because none of us has ever totally kept God’s law. For it is written cursive is everyone who continues not in all things that are written in the book of the law to do them. You know, you’ve gotta keep the whole off if you’re gonna get the blessing based on your performance. And James 2:10 says, if you keep the law but offended in one point, did you know what? You’re guilty of it all. And we have all broken God’s law. And that’s why God sent Jesus. So when we believed on Jesus and Abraham received justification by faith in the redeemer who was gonna come, and we received justification by faith in the redeemer who has already come.

 

  I love what it says here in verse 11, “But that no one is justified by the law.” So it says, no one is justified by the law. And Paul the apostle, had this great revelation, he said, “Concerning the law, I was blameless. I kept it perfectly, but my righteousness was as filthy rags.” So he realized that keeping the law doesn’t change you. Only the gospel, only the life of Christ has the power to change you from the inside out.

 

  And nobody’s ever completely kept God’s law except for Jesus. And so, you know what? Our righteousness is based on faith in Jesus. And if somebody received righteousness or right standing with God in the Old Testament, it’s because they believed well,

 

  And you have to really this ingrained in you. A lot of preachers, a lot of people, a lot of believers want to go back to the law, go back to, “Man, it’s about me. It’s about my performance, it’s about what I do.” A lot of people go back to that.

 

  It’s terrible when people do that. And then they become judgmental and critical of people. And you know, I mean, who died and made you God. I am not God. I am not the judge. You know, Jesus said, “Judge, not lest you be judged.” And you know, I understand as a leader in the body of Christ, I have to discern some things. But at the same time, I’m not God. And I don’t want to even try to.

 

  Well, you wanna go forward in grace. You wanna go from grace to grace, not from law to law. You don’t wanna go deeper and deeper in law keeping and judgment. You wanna keep going forward in grace and faith in Jesus.

 

  Amen, we’re gonna come back after a short break and we’re gonna be talking about what we receive when we believe on Jesus. Friends, we’ve been teaching from my series, The Blessing of the Lord and my son Aaron’s teaching on The Commanded Blessing. You can get these and hundreds of hours more absolutely free of charge, downloadable in audio and video on the website at CharisChristianCenter.com. Get ahold of this truth, blessings.

 

  I had become a Christian and a believer in college. There was so much I didn’t know. So got plugged in, got some good foundation, but I wanted more. The first time we’d come to this church, we just were so blown away with what we saw. People being healed people, a woman in a wheelchair stands up and starts walking and running. She was in braces. And we’re going, whoa.

 

  Friends, I’m so glad that you stayed with us. We are right here talking about when you believe on Jesus, you are made right with God. You’re justified before God and you’re blessed if you are born again. If you have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ, you are blessed by the most high God, the possessor of heaven, earth. And we’re gonna get into that later in this broadcast. But before we do that, we’re gonna turn right here and continue to go through Galatians 3:11. We’re gonna read through verse 14. It says here in Galatians 3:11, “No man is justified by the law in the sight of God. It is evident for the just shall live by faith.” Now, faith is not just a movement, faith is a lifestyle. And if you’re gonna receive righteousness before God, you’re gonna have to begin to live by faith. But I love verse 12, it says, “And the law is not of faith. And the man that does them shall live in them.” You know, the Bible says this in the end of Romans chapter 14, I think it’s verse 23, but it says, “Whatsoever is not of faith is sin.” And if you are trying to be justified by the law, you are falling from grace. You’re gonna miss out on the blessings of God. Paul talks about that in Galatians 5:4. And right there, he says, “The law is not a faith,” and this is what you gotta get. You are not blessed, justified, made right with God by your performance. You’re blessed by faith.

 

  And I love that we’re talking about the commanded blessing. You know, when you understand the commanded blessing, we’re gonna go through, you know, more this week on what the commanded blessing is and how we see it in scripture. It’s used a few times in scripture, but to me it means you don’t have to chase the blessing. The blessing will chase you. When you’re just pursuing Jesus, seeking his kingdom first, He’s gonna add all these things to you. The blessing is actually gonna chase after you overtake you. You can’t run away from it. You don’t have to try, you don’t have to fret, you don’t have to worry. You don’t have to chase after the blessing and just go running around from person to person, meeting to meeting, just trying to get blessed, trying to get healed, trying to get prosperous, trying to go to the next level. You can just-

 

  Believe it.

 

  Believe it and receive it. And just know that it’s gonna come after you.

 

  Right here. Then it goes on in Galatians 3:13-14 and says, “Christ has redeemed us. He purchased us, he bought us out of the curse.” He said, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law being made a curse for us.” Jesus took the curse for us. If you read the curse of the law in Deuteronomy 28:15-68 it includes four things. It includes sin, sickness, poverty and death. And Jesus came to redeem us from the curse of the law, slavery to sin, right? Sickness, poverty and death, spiritual death. Jesus redeemed us from spiritual death. When He comes again, he’ll redeem us from physical death. But it says right here, “Christ has purchased us, bought us out, redeemed us from the curse of the law because He became a curse for us.” The reason that God is not putting sickness on any believer today is because Jesus was cursed in our place. And God would be wrong of Jesus if He put sickness on you. You know, I grew up in a traditional church and they taught that God taught you with sickness so on. And that is nothing but a bald faced lie. It’s terrible.

 

  Well, it says that Jesus redeemed you. So that means He actually paid, what did He pay with to redeem you from sickness?

 

  He bought you with His blood.

 

  He paid with his blood. So the blood of Jesus, that’s how much God wants you to be healed. That’s how much He wants you to be free. That’s how much he wants you to be, you know, prospering and just living in abundance. Jesus redeemed you. He paid with his own blood.

 

  That says this, that he says, for it’s written, this is in Numbers 21:9, “Curse it is everyone who hangs on a tree.” Galatians 3:13, it says he did this in verse 14. “That or so that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ, that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith.” So when you believe on Jesus, you’re blessed in your spirit already. The moment you believe you’re blessed, the Bible says that He blessed us with every spiritual blessing in heavenly places in Christ. That’s Ephesians 1:3. 2 Peter 1:3 says, “His divine power has given to us all things pertaining to life and godliness through our relationship with Jesus who called us to glory and virtue.” Praise God. Now, Aaron, you wanna go ahead and share in Genesis 14. And you got a revelation of this when you were in college and it has literally transformed your life.

 

  Yeah, when I was in, it was actually, I had a gap year between my master’s and doctorate. It was at the start of this gap year where I was gonna, you know, just try to figure life out and start applying for doctoral programs. I was kind of at the bottom of the barrel. I had a lot of student loan debt that I had to pay off and I had to start paying off. ‘Cause I was outta school and I was just sleeping on an air mattress on the time, just barely getting by. But I was reading through my Bible here in Genesis 14, and God just spoke to me. And I got a revelation that I was blessed. I wasn’t cursed even though, you know, I was in debt, even though I was just barely getting by. I was alone relationally. I wasn’t where I really wanted to be in life, but God just showed me that I was blessed. And as soon as I got that revelation in my heart, deep down in my spirit, things started changing very rapidly after that.

 

  Amen. You know, a lot of Christians think they’re cursed, but the fact is you’re blessed and you are not cursed. And you need to get that outta your head. And we’re gonna be talking about it more this week. But when you live under this commanded blessing of God, the devil actually cannot stop it. So go ahead and read that Aaron.

 

  Yeah, so it says here in Genesis 14:18, this is right after Abram came back his nephew Lot and Lot’s family. The entire area had been ransacked and Lot was taken captive. Abraham went after him and got him back, brought back all the goods. And it says here in verse 18 that Melchizedek, the king of Salem, brought out bread and wine. He was the priest of God most high. And he blessed him. So he spoke this blessing over Abraham and he said, “Blessed be Abraham of God. Most high possessor of heaven and earth, and blessed be God most high, who has delivered your enemies into your hand.” And when I was reading that, God just showed me, I’m blessed with faithful Abraham. Just like it says in Galatians 3:13, that we’re blessed with believing or faithful Abraham. This blessing is our blessing. So God just said, “Aaron, you are blessed.” And I knew that I’m blessed by the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth. And I actually took that and wrote it down as a confession. I said, “I’m blessed by the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth.” And I put it up over my little air mattress. And within a year, I was actually making a hundred grand a year.

 

  Your income, when you got that revelation multiplied 10 times. If you get a revelation of the gospel, listen, it’ll transform your life. There’s a lot of people have information, but there’s a difference between information and revelation. And when you get a revelation, you said you got that deep down in your spirit. And I know mom and I came to visit you in Houston. You were living in about a 500 square foot apartment. And in not the most, you know, it was an average area, but it wasn’t a rich area at all. But you had that posted by the head of your bed. “I am blessed by the most high God, the possessor of heaven and earth.” And when you begin to understand that, listen, it’ll transform your life.

 

  And I love what Abraham did after this blessing was spoken over him. He gave a tithe, the all. So he didn’t give that tithe to receive the blessing. He was blessed and tithing was his responsive faith to that. So I had been a tither for a long time and I kept tithing, but I actually started tithing to this ministry, to this church. ‘Cause this is where I was being fed. This is where I was receiving good teaching and growing. So I started tithing here. At the time I was just tithing a hundred dollars a month. But after, after within a year I started, I started tithing a thousand dollars a month. It was awesome. I remember writing that first check over a thousand dollars for my tithe to this ministry. I was so excited to write a check that big and make a gift. Now look what it says here. It says in verse 21, “Now the King of Sodom said to Abraham, ‘Give me the persons and take the goods for yourself.’ But Abraham said to the king of Sodom, ‘I have raised my hand to the Lord. God must hide the possessor of heaven and earth.'” I love that he calls, he’s already speaking that blessing that was just spoken over him by the Lord. He says, “I raised my hand to the.” He’s saying, “I’ve raised my hand, I’ve tithe, I’ve believed it. This is where my blessing comes from, it comes from God most high, it doesn’t come from worldly kings, it doesn’t come from politicians, it doesn’t come from my boss. Ultimately, my blessing comes from God. He’s my source.” And you need to have that revelation. That God Almighty is your source. It doesn’t come from the economy, it doesn’t come from the governor, it doesn’t come from whoever is President. It doesn’t come from your boss, it doesn’t come from your spouse. Man, your blessing, it comes from God. God is your source. And he said, “I’m trusting God.” Verse 23, “I will take nothing from a thread to a sandal strap. I will not take anything that is yours. Less you should say, ‘I have made Abraham rich.'” He didn’t want anyone, especially this ungodly, worldly wicked king to say, “Abraham is rich because of me.”

 

  Yeah. You know, two kings met Abram. First of all, Melchizedek, who’s a type of Christ, my king of righteousness, who was the priest king of Salem or Jerusalem, the city of peace, and then the King of Sodom where a lot lived. And they both met him and Melchizedek blessed him. And after Melchizedek blessed Abraham, Abraham gave him tithes of all and begin to say what Melchizedek said about him. You need to say what Jesus says about you. But then he meets the king of Sodom and he says, “Listen, I ain’t gonna take nothing but what my young men,” he took this, you know, basically army of 318 trained servants and went out and got Lot and his family back and got the goods of Sodom. They probably got more than that because these foreign kings had been raiding a number of communities. And so Abraham got more than what the devil stole. And that’s what you need to do if the devil’s robbed from you is get more than what the devil’s taking from you. And you know, some of you are watching today and you may need to call in and receive prayer and get some people to agree with you. But I believe you can get people to agree with you. And this same blessing, it’s a covenant with God that you have through Christ. And God has no respecter of persons. He’s only respecter of faith. But you can call in and receive prayer and you can also get these materials that we make free of charge, you know, on our website. And literally, I believe if you get a revelation of this, God has no respecter of persons, he’s only respect of faith. It’ll change your life just like it’s changed yours.

 

  Yeah, I really want everyone to just know that you are blessed, man when you have that revelation and really understand that you are blessed. The rest of this teaching that we’re doing throughout this week, it’s gonna make a lot of sense to you. We’re gonna be sharing a lot about the commanded blessing, how God has actually commanded his blessing on you. You know, the possessor of heaven and earth, the one who created the heavens, the one who spoke light into existence, the one who spoke the stars into existence, the one who spoke this planet into existence, He has commanded a blessing over you.

 

  That’s awesome.

 

  So you don’t have to chase the blessing. The blessing is actually chasing after you. If Jesus is on the inside you and you’re putting your faith and trust in Him.

 

  I just wanna say, you know, again, thanks so much for tuning in. Thanks for being part of the broadcast. I wanna say a great thanks to our partners today that make this available and remind you you can give us a call or you can go to our website where we’ve got hundreds of free teachings available to you. Thanks so much and I’ll be back at the end to pray for you. Blessings.

 

  Hi everyone. We have a special announcement for you.

 

  We’re having a camp meeting and it’s for the whole family. We have special kids teaching, special youth teaching, special adult teaching, special guests, and special worship. It’s a great event and you don’t wanna miss it. I believe it will be a blessing to you and your family. So come see us.

 

  There are only two types of believers, those who are blessed and know it, and those who are blessed and don’t know it. God has commanded His supernatural blessing on you. And as you seek Him first, all these things will be added to you. We’d like to bless you with a digital copy of Pastor Aaron’s teaching The Commanded Blessing, and Pastor Lawson’s teaching The Blessing of the Lord, a $20 value free of charge. Download your copy today at CharisChristiansCenter.com.

 

  Friends, we’ve been talking about the blessing of the Lord and Jesus is the condition of the blessing. So if you haven’t received Jesus, just pray with me right now. Heavenly Father, I believe in Jesus. I believe that He’s your son. I believe that He died for my sins and you raised Him from the dead on the third day and made Him Lord. And right now I surrender my life to Jesus.

 

  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.