Ours is a blessing God. He is not stingy, reluctant, or far off; He delights to do His people good. Scripture says so without apology: “The LORD shall command the blessing upon thee in thy storehouses, and in all that thou settest thine hand unto” (Deuteronomy 28:8). And again: “The blessing of the LORD, it maketh rich, and he addeth no sorrow with it” (Proverbs 10:22). But Scripture also keeps the order right — and the order is everything. The greatest blessings God gives are not kept in a barn. They are kept in the soul.
God delights to bless
Let us say the first thing plainly, because some believers are almost embarrassed to: God really does bless His people in the ordinary stuff of life — work and wages, home and health, bread on the table and children at it. “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights” (James 1:17). The Psalmist tells his own soul not to “forget... all his benefits” — the God “who satisfieth thy mouth with good things” (Psalm 103:2-5). Jesus taught us to ask for daily bread, and promised that if we seek first the kingdom, “all these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6:33).
So receive His temporal gifts with thanksgiving. It is not more spiritual to despise them; it is simply ungrateful. The same Father who feeds the ravens and clothes the lilies has not forgotten you.
The blessing that “addeth no sorrow”
But notice the quiet hinge in Proverbs 10:22 — “he addeth no sorrow with it.” That line divides God’s blessing from the world’s riches. Wealth grasped apart from God comes with a hook in it. “They that will be rich fall into temptation and a snare... which drown men in destruction and perdition. For the love of money is the root of all evil... pierced themselves through with many sorrows” (1 Timothy 6:9-10). “Labour not to be rich... riches certainly make themselves wings; they fly away as an eagle toward heaven” (Proverbs 23:4-5).
God’s blessing is different in kind. It comes with peace instead of a hook, with rest instead of a gnawing hunger for more. The question, then, is never merely how much a person has, but what they are resting in. A full barn can sit beside a starved soul.
His deepest blessings are of the soul
Here is the heart of it. When Paul reaches for the greatest blessings of all, he does not point to the storehouse: “Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ” (Ephesians 1:3). Count them — they are the riches no market can touch:
- Forgiveness. “Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered” (Psalm 32:1). The first beatitude of the Old Testament is a clean record before God.
- The indwelling Spirit. God Himself, come to live in you — the gift promised to all who obey the gospel (Acts 2:38-39).
- Peace. “The peace of God, which passeth all understanding, shall keep your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus” (Philippians 4:7).
- Sonship. “The Spirit itself beareth witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God” (Romans 8:16).
- Eternal life. A hope that outlasts the body and the grave.
This is why Jesus could open His great sermon by calling “blessed” the very people the world pities: “Blessed are the poor in spirit... they that mourn... the meek... they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness” (Matthew 5:3-6). He was redefining the word. Blessedness is not a bank balance or a clean bill of health; it is nearness to God. A man can own everything and, like the rich fool, hear God say, “Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee” (Luke 12:20) — rich toward men, bankrupt toward God.
I know this not only from Scripture but from my own heart. I sat down one day simply to count God’s blessings, and I began where most of us begin — with the things I could see: the provision, the home, the work of my hands. But as I counted, something turned. I was drawn past the gifts to the Giver, to a quieter and deeper blessing within — and then to the deepest thing of all: the knowing. Not a conclusion I reasoned my way to, but a witness the Spirit bears in the soul (Romans 8:16). It runs down beneath thought and feeling, and it is the one blessing no loss can ever reach.
The blessing of Abraham
Trace “the blessing” through the whole Bible and you find it running toward one gift. God promised Abraham that in him all families of the earth would be blessed — and Paul tells us how that promise finally lands: “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law... that the blessing of Abraham might come on the Gentiles through Jesus Christ; that we might receive the promise of the Spirit through faith” (Galatians 3:13-14). The climax of the blessing is not land or gold. It is God giving us Himself — His Spirit poured into our hearts. Every lesser blessing is a signpost to that one.
When the blessing looks like loss
This is also why hardship is not proof of God’s disfavor. “Blessed is the man that endureth temptation” (James 1:12). Paul asked three times for his thorn to be removed and received instead, “My grace is sufficient for thee” (2 Corinthians 12:9) — and called that grace better than the healing. The three Hebrews in the furnace were not blessed by being kept out of the fire, but by the presence of One with them in it: “the form of the fourth is like the Son of God” (Daniel 3:25). That is the deepest blessing of all — not the absence of trouble, but the presence of God. Do not read wealth as His smile or hardship as His frown. Read Christ.
The way to be blessed indeed
If the greatest blessing is the gift of God’s own Spirit, then the door to it is the gospel. Peter named it on the day the Spirit first fell: “Repent, and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of sins, and ye shall receive the gift of the Holy Ghost. For the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off” (Acts 2:38-39). There is the blessing of Abraham, offered to you by name. Everything God has for the soul begins there — in the new birth.