Read the transcript from today's video devotional.
What a great, simple, wonderful verse. I would love to take a little bit of time and unpack the richness of the context of this verse.
The Context of the Blessing
In this passage, the Lord is talking to Moses, and in verse 22, before this, it says, "Then the LORD said to Moses, 'Tell Aaron and his sons to bless the people of Israel with this special blessing. May the LORD bless you and protect you.'" Further on it says, "Whenever Aaron and his sons bless the people of Israel in My name, I Myself will bless them."
Now, the amazing thing about the context of this is the Lord is saying to Moses to tell Aaron and his sons to do this. Well Aaron and his sons were the religious leaders, what we would consider the religious leaders over Israel. The beauty of that is, so was Moses. God could have told Moses, hey Moses, I want you to say this to the people. I want you to bless the people. But what that would have done is it would have been something that lived and died with Moses. Instead, God established with Aaron and his sons a future ongoing process of saying, I want the people—not just now, in this moment, but on into the future—to know that I want to bless and protect them.
After the Law Came Grace
The beauty of this is this is right after God gave Moses for Israel a whole bunch of laws to follow. Personally, I think the Old Testament laws get a lot of bad rap because really, if you look at the laws, it was about God wanting to give Israel ways to protect themselves by living in a way that actually is protective, to keep them pure or to keep them undefiled.
The beauty of what God did with the law, and then following up with, can you imagine having this whole burden of hearing all of these expectations? It's like, oh man, this is rough. All these laws. Am I going to be able to do all these and follow all these? That's why after all of that, God said, you know what? I want to bless you. I want to protect you. That's the beauty of God saying this at the tail end of all of these laws. Really, the law reminds us—and the New Testament talks about that—the law reminds us that as much as God gave us something in His laws to try and protect and lead us in a way that keeps us pure and holy, goodness, it was such a reminder that we can never measure up to the holiness of God and perfection of God.
The Gift of God's Son
That's the beautiful thing that when God came along and said, you know what? I realize that, I know you can't measure up, but I want to bless you and protect you. That's why He gave us His Son as a living sacrifice, dying for our sins and paying that penalty of, I know you can never measure up to this, and that's why I still want to bless you and protect you. I'm going to give you My Son. It's such a beautiful picture of God's love, His desire for us to meet that standard of perfection so we can have a healthy relationship with Him, but knowing that we never can by our own ability.
Receive This Blessing
With that in mind, and with what God has done and blessing us with the presence of His Son, the gift of redemption through His Son, that gift of salvation through His Son, the fact that you're wanting and desiring to seek Him today, the fact that you're listening to this or you're watching this tells me you're seeking Him today, in this moment.
What I would love to do is read the context of this blessing for you. If you have the ability physically to do this in the moment is just to hold your hands open to receive this. It also is whatever you're holding on to, letting go. But I would just love for you, in this moment, to receive this blessing from this passage, because this is the full context of this blessing that was prayed out over the people.
"May the Lord bless you and protect you. May the Lord smile on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord show you His favor and give you His peace."
May you live in that blessing and receive that blessing today, and see what God is going to use that in your life today.
