How to pray a blessing over someone

Christian Life

3 Prayers of Blessing from the Bible

Written by Jenn Arman   |   November 10, 2014

At some point during a Sunday service in most churches, you’ll probably hear the pastor say something like, “Take a minute and greet someone.” That’s a pretty normal thing to hear in church.

It’s a little less normal to hear the pastor say, “Take a minute to pray a prayer of blessing over someone near you,” but that’s exactly what my pastor says in many of our services.

I remember the first time I heard him say that, I thought, “How do you pray a prayer of blessing?”

Since I was caught so off guard, I decided to look up blessings in my Bible. I didn’t look up what “blessing” means—I just looked up prayers of blessing that were prayed and recorded in God’s Word, and I’d like to share my favorites with you.

The first (and my very favorite) is Moses’ prayer of blessing over the Israelites in Numbers 6:24-26, also called “The Priestly Blessing”:

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.

Then God makes a promise in verse 27 that whenever Aaron and his sons bless the people of Israel in His name, the Lord Himself will bless them! I believe this is a promise that God continues to honor for all of His children, so it’s important for us to pray blessing prayers over people in the Lord’s name.

Then there’s a great prayer for blessing others with spiritual growth in the Lord from Ephesians 3:16-20:

I pray that from His glorious, unlimited resources He will empower you with inner strength through His Spirit. Then Christ will make His home in your hearts as you trust in Him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong. And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high and how deep His love is. May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully. Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God. Now all glory to God, who is able, through His mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.

The final blessing prayer I want to share with you girls comes from Colossians 1:9b-12:

We ask God to give you complete knowledge of His will and to give you spiritual wisdom and understanding. Then the way you live will always honor and please the Lord, and your lives will produce every kind of good fruit. All the while, you will grow as you learn to know God better and better. We also pray that you will be strengthened with all His glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy, always thanking the Father. He has enabled you to share in the inheritance that belongs to His people, who live in the light.

Blessing prayers are simple: They are prayers asking for the things of God’s kingdom to be present in the person’s life and for specific attributes of God’s character to show in their life.

I want to challenge you to begin writing your own blessing prayers to use as you spend time praying for the important people in your life.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ. (Ephesians 1:3)

Girls, which is your favorite prayer of blessing?

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12 biblical benedictions you can pray for others on all occasions

by Bob Hostetler
Posted in Power of Prayer, Aug 14, 2015

A favorite prayer practice of mine is to pray blessings over people–whether it’s in a child dedication ceremony, a birthday greeting, an email signature, or praying with someone in church. I often use one of these 12 biblical benedictions to pray over someone. These benedictions have been adapted from Bible verses.

I’ve never heard anyone object to receiving such a prayer and have frequently been told that one of these blessings had a powerful effect on someone, even when it was offered briefly and in passing.

It blesses us to bless others and also fulfills the biblical admonition to “let your conversation be always full of grace” (Colossians 4:6, NIV), and to “encourage one another and build each other up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11, NIV).

Here are 12 powerful blessings you can use for all occasions.

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Another very powerful tool we have in our arsenal as born-again believers is the ability to bless other people in the name of Jesus.

I think this is one of those benefits that we have forgotten how powerful it really is. We are so used to praying before our meals and asking God to bless the food with which we are about to eat, that we forget how much further we can really go with this privilege that we have already received from the Lord.

The ability to bless other people and other things is an extremely powerful prayer tool and every Christian should try and do it on some kind of a regular basis, as you never know how far God will actually work with you in this realm.

Here are some of the definitions on exactly what a blessing is from some of the different Bible Dictionaries:

• To bestow happiness or prosperity upon; praise and glorify
• Pronouncement of God’s gracious favor
• The act of declaring, or extending through pronouncement, God’s favor and goodness upon others

For those of you who were not aware of this incredible privilege that we have already received from the Lord, I will go ahead and give you some of the key verses from the Bible showing you that we have been definitely granted this type of authority and privilege from the Lord. I will then end this article giving you some examples of how you can use this powerful privilege in the name of Jesus.

As you will see with some of the examples I will give you below, there is literally an infinite number of things and situations that you can try and bless in the name of Jesus. And when you do bless other people or other situations, real life spiritual transactions can actually take place with the person or situation you are blessing. In other words, the Holy Spirit can actually move to impart the specific blessing that you have just prayed over someone.

The Scripture Verses

Here are 16 very good verses showing the wide variety of situations in which blessings were granted, either direct by God the Father, Jesus Christ, or some of His own people back in both the Old and New Testaments.

• “Assuredly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will by no means enter it.” And He took them up in His arms and blessed them. (Mark 10:15-16)
• “The curse of the Lord is on the house of the wicked, but He blesses the habitation of the just.” (Proverbs 3:33)
• “And He led them out as far as Bethany, and He lifted up His hands and blessed them. Now it came to pass, while He blessed them, that He was parted from them and carried up into heaven.” (Luke 24:50)
• “Then He took the five loaves and the two fish, and looking up to heaven, He blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the multitudes.” (Luke 9:16)
• Then she spoke out with a loud voice and said, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb!” (Luke 1:42)
• “So Joshua blessed them and sent them away, and they went to their tents.” (Joshua 22:6)
• “You are the sons of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with your fathers, saying to Abraham, ‘And in your seed all the families of the earth shall be blessed.’” (Acts 3:25)
• “When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the Lord your God for the good land which He has given you.” (Deuteronomy 8:10)
• “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all of His benefits.” (Psalm 103:2)
• “With it we bless our God and Father, and with it we curse men, who have been made in the similitude of God.” (James 3:9)
• “Otherwise if you bless with the spirit, how will he who occupies the place of the uniformed say “Amen” at your giving of thanks, since he does not understand what you say?” (1 Corinthians 14:16)
• “The cup of blessing which we bless, is it not the communion of the blood of Christ? The bread which we break, is it not the communion of the body of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10:16)
• And God blessed them, saying, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the waters in the seas, and let birds multiply on the earth.” (Genesis 1:22)
• “But I say to you, love your enemies, bless those who curse you, do good to those who hate you, and pray for those who spitefully use you and persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44)
• “Bless those who persecute you; bless and do not curse.” (Romans 12:14)
• “But whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house.’ And if the son of peace is there, your peace will rest on it; if not, it will return to you.” (Luke 10:5-6)

Notice in addition to God being able to directly bless us and we blessing other people in His name, that we can also directly bless God ourselves.

As you can see from the above verses, not only did God the Father bless in the Old Testament and Jesus blessed in the New Testament, but both the apostles in the New Testament and some of the patriarchs in the Old Testament also blessed others in the name of God.

When Jesus left and ascended to His Father, He told us to do what He did. He has thus given us His authority and His power to carry on His supernatural ministry. And part of that supernatural ministry is the right to be able to bestow blessings upon one another in His name.

Examples of What You Can Bless In the Name of Jesus

There are literally an infinite number of things you can bless in the name of Jesus. Just so you can see how far you can actually go with this privilege, here are a few examples.

• Bless the food you eat at every meal.
• Bless someone with peace if they have lost it due to an adverse development that may have just occurred in their life.
• Bless the baby a mother is carrying in her womb, and ask God to bless the mother with a perfectly normal healthy baby.
• Ask God to bless someone with a new job if they have just lost their job.
• Ask God to bless someone with knowledge and wisdom if they are having a hard time in trying to solve a personal problem.
• Ask God to bless your finances or someone else’s finances if they have run into trouble.
• Ask God to bless your house or any other valuable personal items you may have.
• Ask God to bless our country and our political leaders. Ask God to bless our leaders with His knowledge and wisdom so they can make the right decisions with the tough times we are now all facing.
• Ask God to bless any new adventure or any new job you are now taking.
• Ask God to personally bless you with His knowledge and wisdom so you can make all the right choices in this life.
• Ask God to bless you with favor at your place of employment.
• Bless the marriages of all of your children so they can stay under the hand and covering of God.
• Bless others with joy, peace, and happiness in the Lord.

As you can see from these types of examples, there are just a wide variety of things that you can bless in the name of Jesus. You can pronounce blessings on yourself, other people, different type of situations like marriages and pregnancies, and actual objects like your houses and some of your personal items and possessions.

How to Word a Blessing

For those of you who are looking on how to word a blessing, here are a few suggestions using some of the above examples.

• Father, in the name of Jesus, I ask that You bless the child in my wife’s womb and that You bless our child with perfect health and long life.
• Father, I ask that You bless Joe with a new job since he has just lost his job. Bless him with the right job for Your glory, in Jesus name.
• Father, please bless Susan with Your knowledge and wisdom to solve the personal problem that she is dealing with at work, in Jesus name.
• Father, in the name of Jesus, I ask that You bless the new job that I am about to take. I ask that You bless this job and also bless me with favor with both my bosses and the people that I will now be working with.
• Father, in the name of Jesus, I ask that You bless the marriage of my son Daniel and his new wife Tracy. I ask that You bless them with happiness, peace, joy, and long life in You. I ask that You also bless any children they may have. I ask that You bless each one of their children with perfect health and long life.
• Father, in the name of Jesus, I ask that You bless this country and bless the leaders of our country. I ask that You specifically bless them with Your knowledge and wisdom so they can make the right choices to keep this country safe, strong, and secure in You. I ask all of this in Jesus name.

Again, there are just an infinite number of things or situations that you can actually pray a blessing over in the name of Jesus.

Conclusion

Many of us have heard the words, “God bless you,” so many times, that we really have forgotten what this principle is all about and how powerful it really is, especially if it is being done under the unction of the Holy Spirit.

Again, real life transactions can actually occur in the spiritual realm when we pronounce a blessing on someone or something. The Holy Spirit Himself can move on the person or situation that we are pronouncing the blessing over and actually impart exactly what we are blessing that someone with.

That is why it would help if you can be very specific with what you are blessing someone with as versus just doing a general type of blessing.

To those of you who have never really tried out this privilege we now have with the Lord, you might want to start experimenting with it, as you never know when God will move to actually back you up with what you are blessing.

Ask, and you just may receive some incredible blessings, for either yourself or someone else you may be blessing.

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One of the hardest things to do in life is watch someone you love be stuck in sin. It is hard to watch those we love struggle with abusive relationships, alcohol, drugs, gambling, etc. As much as we talk to them until we’re blue in the face, it may not necessarily make a difference.  It can be so easy to get angry. As a Christian, it can be even harder to know how to pray for people in this situation. It’s so easy to pray for the “human resolution” that we think is right and not God’s will. But how do we know what or how to pray? Here are some ways to open your heart and make praying for those you love who are living in sin a little easier.

Pray For the Lord To Be With Them – One of the first things is to pray for the Lord to be with the person and watch over them wherever they are.

Pray for Him To Start Working In Their Life – Second, pray for the Lord to start working in their life. Even if you don’t see it right now, it does not mean that you don’t have faith that He is working in the background.

Pray For An Opening Of The Heart, Mind and Spirit – Third, pray for the Lord to open their heart, mind and spirit to the love, grace, healing and deliverance that only He can bring. Ask Him to speak to them in a most unique way that will really touch them and get their attention.

“All wicked actions are sin, but not all sins lead to death.” -1 John 5:17 (NLT)

Pray As If It Has Already Come To Pass – Give the Lord the praise and the glory for the victory over the person’s life as if it has already happened. For example, “Lord, I give you the praise and the glory over the victory that I am trusting You to bring to this person’s life.”

Pray Against The Enemy – As we all know, the enemy is out to seek, kill and destroy anyone vulnerable in his path. He is good at trickery and making things look more appealing than they are. We need to pray against his influence in our loved ones lives, because he will do everything he can to keep them in sin and bondage. For example, “To the enemy I say right now, that you will take everything you have ever come against them with, everything you have ever oppressed them with, you will take your hands off of them and every last fingerprint out of their life and go back to the pit of hell where you belong.”

“Submit yourselves to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” -James 4:7

Pray For The Person’s Situation – Pray specifically over what is keeping your loved one in bondage. Ask that all chains be broken and that God’s will prevail in this certain situation.

Speak Life Over Them – Finish your prayer by speaking life over the person you are praying for.Declare victory, redemption, healing and deliverance over the person.

“Pray in the Spirit at all times and on every occasion. Stay alert and be persistent in your prayers for all believers everywhere.” -Ephesians 6:18

As Christians, it’s not only important to pray for those living in sin, but to also pray for each other and with each other, as we pray for our loved ones. Prayer is a powerful thing.

“Where two or three gather as my followers, I am there among them.”-Matthew 18:20 (NLT)

Are you still wondering how to settle your thoughts and emotions before you go into your prayer time for your loved one? Let’s pray.

Dear Lord,

I come to You in deepest love and concern for my loved one. As you know it is hard for me to watch them go through this situation. It is even harder sometimes to keep my thoughts and emotions in check. Sometimes when I am in prayer, all these things get stirred up and it is hard for me to concentrate and hear Your voice. As I go into my prayer time with You right now, I pray that You will settle all these things inside me. Clear my heart and mind of anything that will hinder my discernment of Your voice. In Your name I pray. Amen.”

Carrie Lowrance is a freelance writer and author. She has been featured on Huffington Post, She Is Fierce, Parachute, The Frugal Farmer, etc. She is also the author of two books of poetry, one children’s book, and she writes her own personal finance blog at www.freelancebylowrance.com.

Image courtesy: Unsplash.com

Publication date: March 22, 2017

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