Be Blessed | The Institute for Creation Research

Be Blessed

During the days of Jesus, being blessed had a different meaning from what Christians understand it to mean today. The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament says the word for “blessed” was used by Greeks when talking about gods and their blessedness. Later, it was used to describe how the rich were free from worry.

When Jesus preached the Sermon on the Mount, He redefined the word for all who listened. All people want to be blessed, and many people looking up at Jesus that day had in mind what being blessed would look like for them. It just wasn’t what they were expecting. In Matthew 5, Jesus tells His followers that the blessed are those who are poor in spirit, mournful, meek, hungering and thirsting after righteousness, merciful, pure in heart, peacemakers, persecuted for their righteousness, and reviled by this world for Jesus’ sake. This does not sound like the path to being rich and loved, today’s version of “blessed.” Yet for those who follow Jesus, we can see it.

One weekend while in Gilmer, Texas, I witnessed the first outing of one of my best friends’ little ones into the world of Little League Baseball. As joyful a time as that was, I will remember more what happened later. We had lunch downtown with those same friends and family. That day, they were having a barbecue contest downtown, so the square was full. I decided to wear one of my ICR T-shirts for two reasons. The first reason was the name of the baseball team had dinosaurs in it.

Secondly, I had hoped for a reaction from someone who would read it, and someone did. A gentleman walked up to me and asked what it meant. I was wearing the “Dinosaurs Est. Day 6” shirt, and he was curious. He had never heard of the Institute for Creation Research, so I let him know all about us. I felt so much joy from that. Jesus knew when He was speaking to those people on the mount that most of them were not the rich elite but might have wanted to be. He also knew that if they focused on what He wanted instead, they would get way more joy than what money could bring them.

That day I felt blessed, and that wasn’t the only day. I love my job working in information technology, and it always seems like I’m blessed whenever we need to do an upgrade or fix something that just got old and worn down.

Every time I think about the donors who give money to ICR, I feel blessed. God works through our donors to help us get to where we need to be, to stay at the cutting edge. Those donations have helped us to create things like designs for T-shirts so that introverts like me can have a way to spark up those conversations to help spread Christ’s kingdom. They also helped to get the ICR Discovery Center for Science & Earth History off the ground so that we can equip those brave souls who will use the information they gain from it to go and be blessed with the kind of blessing Jesus was talking about—the favor of God and heavenly riches.

* Mr. West is IT Systems Administrator at the Institute for Creation Research.

Cite this article: Bill West. 2021. Be Blessed. Acts & Facts. 50 (8).

The Latest
CREATION.LIVE PODCAST
Searching for Truth Across the Globe | Creation.Live Podcast:...
How can we bring the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the truth of creation to others outside our small spheres of influence?   Host...

NEWS
Marine Mammals: Designed for Deep Diving
While you’re reading this, hold your breath. What is now happening is your blood is delivering the last of oxygenated blood cells to your tissues...

CREATION PODCAST
Humanity's Demise at the Hands of Genetic Entropy | The Creation...
Welcome to the fourth episode in a series called “The Failures of Old Earth Creationism.” Many Christians attempt to fit old earth...

NEWS
''Inside-Out'' Fossil is Amazingly Preserved
It is widely known that vast numbers of fossils—vertebrate and invertebrate—have been discovered incredibly well-preserved.1,2...

NEWS
The Resurrection and the Origin of Life
At Easter time we focus on the cardinal Christian doctrine of the Resurrection. Without the Resurrection, Christianity is a sham. The truth that Jesus...

NEWS
Is an Ancient Extinct Tree-Dweller Our Relative?
Human evolution has always been hazy with seemingly as many attempted explanations for how we evolved from animals as there are paleoanthropologists. Evolutionists...

NEWS
The Return of the Dire Wolf?
There’s been much recent excitement about the birth of three dire wolf (Aenocyon dirus) puppies by a Dallas-based biotech company: Colossal Bioscience....

CREATION PODCAST
Cracks in the Layers: Lake Suigetsu and the Old Earth Illusion...
Welcome to the third episode in a series called “The Failures of Old Earth Creationism.” Many Christians attempt to fit old earth...

NEWS
Fish Fossil Vomit
A rather unsavory news story recently appeared regarding fossilized vomit. Although it’s hardly dinner table conversation, it nonetheless supports...

NEWS
Dino Footprints Down Under
Dinosaur trackways1 are once again making the news. Australia is the setting of a remarkable series of dinosaur tracks attributed to ornithischian...