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Moses set before the children of Israel blessing and curse—Deut. 30:19:
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In Genesis 1:26-28 God blessed man to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and subdue it, because God saw on earth a living creature bearing His image and having His dominion.
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In order to be a blessing to His chosen people, God must have a kingdom, a realm, a sphere, on earth to exercise His administration under His full, divine authority—Matt. 6:10; Col. 1:13:
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Without such a kingdom, God does not have a realm in which to accomplish His purpose.
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Once there is a kingdom, the kingdom becomes the realm, the sphere, for God to exercise Himself to bless us—Rev. 11:15.
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We all want to receive blessing, but we may not realize that the blessing requires a sphere of God’s authority, a sphere under God’s administration.
Morning Nourishment
Deut. 30:19 …I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life that you and your seed may live.Gen. 1:28 And God blessed them; and God said to them, Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it, and have dominion…
God blessed man to be fruitful, multiply, fill the earth, and conquer it (Gen. 1:28)….God is rich and God is rich in blessing, but before the creation of man there was no object to receive His blessing in full….According to the record of Genesis 1, God did not begin to bless until the time when the living creatures came into being (Gen. 1:22). Yet, only the human life is up to the standard to receive God’s blessing in full. After God created man, He was able to see on earth a living creature bearing His image and having His dominion. Immediately God bestowed His full blessing upon man. (Life-study of Genesis, p. 105)
Today’s Reading
If we are to receive God’s blessing, we need to meet the qualifications…, [which] are image and dominion. If there is the image of God with God’s dominion in your home, you can be assured that the blessing of God will be there….God’s blessing always follows His expression and His representation.God’s blessing is always with the priesthood and the kingship.…The priesthood is for God’s image; the kingship is for God’s dominion. As long as we exercise the priesthood to contact God, to behold God and to reflect the image of glory, we have the kingship. God’s blessing follows immediately.
The blessing is fruit-bearing, increase, multiplication, and the filling of the earth….God…created a man in His image, giving him authority to have dominion for the Almighty on earth. This man was ready for God’s blessing. God’s blessing was to enable this man to be fruitful. One would become ten, ten would become one hundred, one hundred would become a thousand, a thousand would become a hundred thousand, a hundred thousand would become a million, and a million would become a billion, until the whole earth was filled with beautiful faces expressing God and representing God.
How much God is able to bless us depends on how much we express Him and represent Him. If we express Him and represent Him in an adequate way, we will surely have His full blessing in multiplication and fruit-bearing. (Life-study of Genesis, pp. 105-107)
We must see that the Lord withholds no good thing from us. If the work is not going well, if the brothers and sisters are in a poor condition, or if the number of saved ones is not increasing, we should not use the environment or certain people as an excuse. We cannot blame the brothers. I am afraid that the real reason lies with our harboring of some frustrations to the blessing. If the Lord can get through in us, the Lord’s blessing will be greater than our capacity. Once God said to the Israelites, “Prove Me, if you will, by this,…whether I will open to you the windows of heaven and pour out blessing for you until there is no room for it” (Mal 3:10). God is still saying this today. The normal life of a Christian is a life of blessing, and the normal work of a Christian is a work of blessing. If we do not receive blessing, we should say, “Lord, perhaps I am the problem.” (Expecting the Lord’s Blessing (booklet), pp. 7-8)
The principle of God’s blessing is also seen in the case of Naomi in the book of Ruth….Since Naomi was humbled and subdued under God’s judging hand, God’s blessing was brought in….This case shows that God’s heart is to bless, but man’s questionable condition requires God’s judging hand first….Whoever is willing to judge and condemn himself under God’s judging will meet grace and receive blessing. (CWWL, 1957, vol. 3, “The Living God and the God of Resurrection,” pp. 46-47)
Further Reading: Life-study of Genesis, msg. 9; CWWL, 1957, vol. 3, “The Living God and the God of Resurrection,” ch. 6; CWWN, vol. 56, “Expecting the Lord’s Blessing,” pp. 435-446