Welcome to the In Touch podcast with Charles Stanley for Friday, January 30th.

Someone has probably told you to count your blessings.

But if your list feels short, you might be overlooking all that God has given you,

the small, everyday gifts that can transform your perspective.

Discover how to recognize and appreciate God's

gifts in Dr. Stanley's message on today's podcast. I was in the grocery store and all of a sudden

I sneezed. And when I did, some fellow said, well, bless you. And I turned to look at him and I didn't

know exactly what he meant. I'd heard that before,

but I never thought about it until I walked away and I thought, I wonder what he meant by that.

Is this some Christian who thinks this fellow's got a problem? So I'm going to pray the Lord to bless him.

Or was this just a habit that he has that if anybody sneezed around him he said bless you but it got

me to thinking about how we oftentimes use that phrase bless you well the lord just bless you good

haven't you said that to people just bless you good what in the world does that mean and we sing you know

bless be the tie that binds and blessed be the name of the Lord.

And in our prayers, we pray, Lord, would you bless him and bless her and bless this and bless that?

And, you know, we bless all kind of things.

And I wonder, what in the world do we mean by it?

If you look in the New Testament, there are two words primarily that are translated, bless or blessed.

One of them is homologale, which is a word

simply translated blessing. There's another word that is translated blessing, Macarius. And if you'll

look back in Matthew chapter 5 and you'll recall in the beatitudes when Jesus was speaking here beginning

on the sermon of the mount how many times he says blessed of those who mourn, blessed

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