How to Activate your Blessings - (Genesis 30: 31-43, 31:38-43)

Pastor Ituah Ighodalo

In our text above, Jacob the child of the future presented his CV to Laban his uncle and master. He was saying to Laban that he had helped him to prosper exceedingly and had served him faithfully and now it was his (Jacob’s) turn to be blessed. Jacob had served Laban for twenty years, fourteen of which had been in order to marry Laban’s daughters Leah and Racheal and another six when he found out that he was totally broke and he needed money.

Jacob had run away from his parents’ home to Laban at the time his brother Esau was after him. Along the way after experiencing some problems, he had made a covenant with God that if God will preserve his life and prosper him he will serve God. When he came back from this sojourn at Laban’s house, he told Esau that the Lord had blessed him; that he left his country empty and he came back full and he was a child of blessing.

There comes a time in the life of every individual when you need to come out on your own and come of age. For different people this comes at different times and different stages of their lives. The time for a man’s blessings comes at different ages or stages in lives. For a man called Abraham, his time came at the age of 75. For Isaac his son, his turn came at the age of 60.

Jacob’s turn came around the age of 60. For Joseph, his turn came at 30. For Moses it came at the age of 80 and for David at came at the age of 30. Unfortunately for some people it comes rather late and they end up spending the rest of their life in despair and depression.

A blessing is a basic need of man. It is a foundational requirement for his existence. If you are not blessed then you are lacking a fundamental need and your life is incomplete. Genesis 1:27 tells us that when God made man he gave him five basic components:

(1) God gave man life, (2) God gave man physical health and strength, (3) God gave man mental health and capability, (4) God made man spiritually competent, (5) God blessed man and gave him financial competence.

God knew that man will not survive without any of these basic needs. You cannot live a good and fruitful life if you are not blessed. You cannot be in your rightful place if you are not blessed. With blessings comes fruitfulness and multiplication. Ezekiel 34: 26-27 tells us of the promises of God to bless us. There is no honour, there is no respect, and there is no gratification in poverty.

The word ‘Blessing’ also means a favour, an invocation of happiness, and a benefit. A blessing means to invite divine favour upon someone. Without God’s divine favour upon you, you cannot survive. It is God’s favour that brings about opportunities and success.       
How Do You Get Blessed?

1. You get blessed if you are born blessed. If your father and his father before him are blessed then you are blessed except you change your mind about being blessed. Genesis 26:3 tells us that the Lord blessed Isaac as a realisation of the covenant sworn to Abraham his father. Isaac was blessed because of Abraham’s sake. Solomon was blessed because of David’s sake (2 Chronicles 7: 17-18). Similarly if your forefathers are cursed then you are also under a curse.
2. You get blessed through obedience to God. In Genesis 26:5 God explained to Isaac why he blessed Abraham. Disobedience can deny you of your blessings and lead to a curse. Deuteronomy 28: 1-14 says many things about obedience and blessings.
3. You are blessed if you live in an environment that is blessed. Similarly you may be cursed if you are living in a city that is under a curse. 2 Kings 2: 19-22 tells us the story of the cursed city of Jericho. Because the city was under a cause, there was no fruitfulness and everyone living in the city was barren.  
4. You can extract a blessing through an exchange. In Genesis 27: 1-4 the Bible says that Isaac asked Esau for savoury meat in exchange for a blessing. Every time you give your parents something and they pronounce a blessing on you then you are blessed. If you are nice to people who can invoke a command of blessing on your life then you can be blessed. By blessing people such as your parents, your grandparents, your pastor, your boss, an elderly relative and the poor you are invoking a blessing on your own life. There is no way you can give something to someone that they will not open their mouths and say thank you which is a blessing. Job said that he was blessed because he blessed others (Job 29: 2-13).         
5. You get blessed by getting born again. Regardless of whatever you might possess now, if you are not yet born again then you are not blessed. All the wealth that you have gathered has been gathered for the princes of God to acquire. A lot of people experience sleepless nights, they experience nights of anxiety, and they experience various losses and go through several tensions because they are not born again. If you are not yet born again then you cannot be blessed. Money cannot buy good health or peace of mind. When you give your life to God the blessings will begin to flow through every area of your life.      

How Do You Activate Your Blessings?        
            It is one thing for someone to pronounce a blessing over your life and it is another thing for you to activate it. If you do not activate your blessings then that blessing is empty. The blessing is an instruction sent to somebody who is spiritually, mentally and physically ready to receive it. If you are not ready to receive your blessing then that blessing may pass you by. Since the day that Jacob left his father’s house he had been blessed. But Jacob didn’t activate his blessings and for twenty years nothing happened in his life. Jacob was incapable of activating his blessings for twenty years until the day God decided to help him. How did Jacob activate his blessings?

1. He served twenty years of hard labour. What does this mean? This means that you start to activate your blessings when you say that enough is enough. You cannot be blessed unless you desire to be blessed. You must want to get out of your present circumstances.
2. Jacob changed the terms of his employment. He got out of paid employment and started working on commission. To activate your blessings, you need to begin to do something that God can bless you with. A lot of people want to be blessed but are so lazy and are not ready to do anything that God can bless them with. You are even more blessed when you are doing something that you enjoy doing and that God has given you a natural ability for.
3. You must research and study your area of enterprise. Knowledge is power. The difference between poverty and wealth is knowledge. Jacob’s blessings came when he got divine revelation about his business. Every good business and ministry must get new information.
4. You must have a great vision. Jacob began to be blessed when he began to dream. The same energy it takes to have small dreams is what it will take to have big dreams.                               

             You must move from being a babe to an adult. You must move from walking to flying. You must move from being dependent to being a person that people are depending on. You must move from being a servant to being a leader. You must move from being an employee to being an employer.