Welcome to the In Touch podcast with Charles Stanley for Thursday, July 17th.

Christians use the word bless a lot.

But do you really understand what it means?

Stay with us as we go deeper to explore what it truly means to be blessed.

Well, the words bless and blessing are sort of household words among Christians, and

oftentimes we'll say, well, bless you. Or we'll talk about how God has blessed someone else.

We pray and say that we're going to ask God to bless you. And oftentimes we use those phrases

without even stopping to think what they mean. What does it mean to say to someone

bless you? Or what does it mean to say that we bless God for something? So I want you to turn to

the 8 of 1st Psalm. And when you first read this, you'll think, well, how do you get that out of this?

Well, it's all here. And if you look at this 81st Psalm, beginning in verse 8 through 16,

let me tell you what's happening before. And that is the psalmist is rejoicing and talking about

God's blessing and so forth. And then he talks about the fact that God has redeemed, and that is

delivered the nation of Israel, the Hebrew children out of Egyptian bondage.

And he says in verse 6, I relieve the shoulder of the burden, hands freed from the baskets,

call them in trouble, rescued them, answered there in the place of thunder, prove them at the

waters of Maribar, and then he says, here, oh, my people, and I will admonish you.

O Israel, if you would listen to me, let there be no

strange God among you, nor shall you worship any foreign God. I, the Lord, am your God, who brought

you up from the land of Egypt. Open your mouth wide, and I will fill it. But my people didn't

listen to me to my voice, and Israel did not obey me. So I will fill it. But my people didn't listen to me to my voice.

And Israel did not obey me. So I gave them over to the stubbornness of their heart to walk in their own devices.

...