Well, how can I meaningfully bless my children before bed? I love this question. It is from a dad named Wes. Hello, Pastor John. Thank you for this podcast. My question is about blessing my children. I have three boys, six and under. Among the household duties that I regularly assume is bedtime, I have since each was born sang "Jesus loves me" to them every night, thousands of times, inserting their names into the lyrics.

I am stunned at the impact this little song has. Even when a child is melting down and revolting against being put to bed, they will not let me skip the song. Additionally, I pray for each son as well. Now, I have decided to give each of my boys a blessing.

It will be given to them nightly, and it must be theologically rich since it will be memorized by them throughout the years. There are so many biblical truths I want them to understand and carry on into adulthood. I can't seem to find the right words or scriptures to incorporate them all.

If you were writing or selecting a blessing for your son to carry throughout his life, how would you do it and maybe more specifically, what truths would you want them to hear every night? Pastor John, what would you say to Wes? Well, since Wes seems to me to be so far ahead of most parents here, let me cheat a little bit on his question and back up and give some words of explanation and foundation and encourage judgment, I hope, before I say something brief in response to his particular question about a content for the blessing of his children.

What I mean when I say he's ahead of most parents is that I would guess very few parents actually have given a lot of thought to what a blessing over their children would look like or whether they should do it at all or why they should do it or what it should include.

Like he's asking, so in answering Wes, I want to encourage parents who maybe never even thought that this is a good idea to give it some serious consideration, namely blessing, speaking blessing over their children regularly, perhaps nightly as they put them to bed. So a little background and explanation.

The most famous blessing in the Bible is probably Numbers 6, 24 to 26. The Lord bless you and keep you. The Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace. Now here's what's unique about a blessing like that, as opposed to a simple prayer.

In prayer, we are talking directly to God, and when we use the word you in prayer, we mean you, God. We're not talking directly to people when we pray, even though corporate prayer is good and it's intended that people are to hear us and say amen when we pray.

But in a blessing, we are talking directly to people or a person. And when we use the word you, we don't mean God, we mean you, the person that we're talking to. And yet we are intending for God to be the one who acts in response to our blessing.

In other words, a blessing is moving in two directions. We really do intend for two persons to hear what we are saying. The one we are addressing directly, and God, whom we intend to hear us and will give the blessing on the person that we're talking to. So when we say, "The Lord bless you and keep you," we are directly speaking to another person or group of people, but we're asking the Lord to do the blessing.

So when we bless someone, we're making plain that we believe God is the decisive actor, but that he uses human means to perform his act of blessing. If we don't believe that, we wouldn't be speaking the blessing. Our speaking, we believe, that's why we do it, our speaking is part of God's way of doing the blessing.

This is what's unique and powerful and precious about a blessing. In the very act of blessing, we become part of the means by which God blesses the person that we're speaking to. So the relationship that such a blessing forges is part of the blessing that God imparts. This is why it can be so powerful with our children.

The blessing is coming from God through daddy. It's coming from God through daddy. That's a very powerful moment as children come to understand what's going on here. So here are a couple of bridges between the Old Testament practice. You might wonder, "Well, yeah, they did that in the Old Testament.

Where's that in the New Testament?" Here's some bridges between Old Testament blessing, like number six, for example, Isaac blessing his sons by faith in Hebrews 11, 20 to 21, referring back. For example, Jesus says in Mark 10, 15, "Whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter the kingdom." And he took them in his arms and he blessed them, laying his hands on them.

So it's a very Christ-like thing to do, to bless children, laying our hands on our children as we speak a blessing over them. Now, what guidance do we get from the apostles as to what a Christian might say in a blessing on another Christian or on a child or family?

Here are a couple of pointers. It's amazing to me that at the beginning of every single letter that Paul wrote, that he says something like, "Grace to you, grace be to you, and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." It's Romans 1, 7, and it's at the beginning of every letter.

And at the end of every single letter, no exceptions, he writes something like, "The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you." That's Romans 16, 20. Now, these are the kind of blessings which Paul pronounces over the recipients of his letters. They're addressed to the readers, to you.

He's saying you, readers. But they are intended to call down grace and peace from God the Father and from the Lord Jesus. So Paul expects that his words will be part of the blessing that God imparts with grace and peace to the readers. And I think the reason he says, "Grace to you, be to you, grace be to you," at the beginning of the letters, and "Grace be with you," at the end of the letters, without exception, is that the divine truth of the letter itself is part of the powerful grace that is coming to them as they read the letter.

And then the abiding effects of the truth-mediated blessing coming to them in the letter goes with them as they get up and leave the reading of the letter and enter into their daily lives. So the biblical content, you might say, of our blessing spoken over our children is found between the beginning and the end of Paul's epistles.

You want to know what to bless your children with, you read the epistles. And if we would go to the heart of the matter, it would be, I think, let Romans 8.32 guide the content of your blessing. Here it goes. "He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?" In other words, make sure that God's unfathomable gift of his son to die for us is placed as the foundation of all grace and all peace and all the blessings that come to your children.

And then summarize that grace and peace with words surrounding Romans 8.32 and the rest of Romans 8, "called, justified, inseparably kept through hardship, through suffering, for the enjoyment of God's presence forever." I think one of the best guides, this little advertisement, I think one of the best guides for us is David Michael's little booklet, A Father's Guide to Blessing His Children.

You can find that over at truth78.org. And some look your children in the eye and speak grace and peace into their lives based on the gift of God in the death of Jesus, and make plain the central blessings that Christ has purchased for his children—freedom from sin, everlasting life, everlasting joy, eternal presence of God, of Jesus, keeping them through all the hardships of life and suffering.

What a privilege for dads. Thank you, Pastor John, for this advice. Well, whether you listen in the car or the gym or doing chores, thank you for inviting us into your busy day. If you have not yet done so, you can subscribe to Ask Pastor John in your favorite podcast app in YouTube or in Spotify.

And to find other episodes in our archive or to submit a question to us, like this really great one from Wes. Thank you, Wes, for sending this in. You can send us your own question online at DesiringGod.org/AskPastorJohn. Well, last week, we talked a little bit about the challenge of why our theology doesn't change our lives quickly, at least not as fast as we would like it to.

We also talked about the expulsive power of a new affection that those new holy affections we have for God help push out of our lives the fallen desires that we have for sin. But from those topics emerges another related question, namely this one. Realistically, how changed will my desires become in this life?

It's a question from a listener named Emma. It's a really great one, another really great question. And that's up next time. I'm your host, Tony Ranke. We'll see you back here on Monday. 1 Desiring God's Love and Passion for the New Testament - A Guide to the New Testament 1 Desiring God's Love and Passion for the New Testament - A Guide to the New Testament 1 Desiring God's Love and Passion for the New Testament - A Guide to the New Testament 1 Desiring God's Love and Passion for the New Testament - A Guide to the New Testament 1