A lot of people these days tell me they are “blessed”. It’s become the default reaction to anything positive that has happened to them like receiving some windfall, gaining a promotion at work, or simply getting a car park nearer the store entry. Such usage now tends to lead us to associate “blessing” with some material gain in our lives. It is then a short step to twist the gospel message to mean that being wealthy, being powerful or being important are therefore a sign of God’s blessing upon you for being a righteous person. Some churches even go further and promote this as a theology. They claim that God wants you to be rich and successful and if you are not it is due to your lack of faith. You are then encouraged to give money to the church in order to receive this “blessing”

In our reading today, we are looking at the question of what it means to be blessed. Paul is writing to a group of people who are being persecuted, who have little in the way of money or status and who are wondering what is going in the world yet he begins by telling them they are “blessed”. While they may not feel particularly blessed in terms of how we view it, Paul points out they are blessed because God has chosen them to become part of God’s family. God has come to them as Jesus to show them how life is meant to be lived and has saved them through this action. God has gifted them the Spirit as a sort of down payment on their salvation to assure them of what God will do in the future. But Paul also stresses that there is a responsibility that comes along with this blessing, and that is to live for God.

Being blessed is therefore about being in a right relationship with God, not getting something material from God. It’s about recognising that despite our current financial situation, we are blessed because God loves us, cares for us, and longs for us to live in a way that brings glory to God. But this blessing comes with a responsibility to change the way we live. The purpose of God saving us is not so we can get into heaven when we die, but so that we can bring glory to God through how we now live, with compassion, mercy, forgiveness and grace. Too many are happy to accept God’s blessing without ever changing a thing about themselves, to hoard resources for themselves because they’ve been “blessed” with money. They have been blessed, they’ve been called into a relationship with God, and relationships are two-way streets. If we are content to accept God’s blessing, we must also be content to live for God and not ourselves.