Gen 24:27, And he said, "Blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken His lovingkindness and His truth toward my master; as for me, the Lord has guided me in the way to the house of my master's brothers." 
	Last week, we began our study of this statement, Blessed be the Lord. Admittedly, there are many people, including well-meaning Christians, who will very casually make this declaration without any full realization of what absolutely entails. It is often just an expression of culture or of convenience or of habit with no purpose or desire set firmly behind it. 
As we started to consider last week, for those who are truly after God being blessed, this declaration involves the every facet of our being. We saw that seeking to bless God is the very basis of giving back to Him the tithe that He so fully deserves. We recounted the necessity to thank God and to seek to give Him blessing for the deliverance that we have received through the death and resurrection of His Only Begotten Son. Our every fabric of being is to be invested in our complete worship and praise unto Him. He is to be the full purpose of our lives on this earth. All of these aspects are part of what it means to bless God.
This then brings us to another aspect of blessing God as was illustrated by David in his dealings with Nabal. David was in the process of coming down to utterly destroy this man who was cursing him and refusing to honor the fact of David’s protection over Nabal’s men and flocks. The Lord made the provision, through the discernment of Abigail, Nabal’s wife to intercede on Nabal’s behalf, without his knowledge, and to sooth the anger of David in order to prevent the planned slaughter.
1 Sam 25:32+33, Then David said to Abigail, "Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, who sent you this day to meet me, and blessed be your discernment, and blessed be you, who have kept me this day from bloodshed, and from avenging myself by my own hand. God is to be blessed when we recognize that He has prevented us from taking matters into our own hands to rectify a perceived wrong or an injury. David would have killed many men that day, but God caused Abigail to have a heart to bring forth peace and goodwill in order that David’s hands would not be stained with the innocent blood of Nabal’s servants. 
When we see the intervention of God in place on behalf of His testimony, we should absolutely give voice to the fact that God is to be blessed for His keeping power and His wisdom and His sovereignty in ruling and overruling in all the affairs of men. It matters not whether we are seeing kings and governors and rulers or spouses or parents or bosses or whomsoever has anything to do with our lives being held at bay by the Hand of God, we should offer Him all blessing that He is in charge and not we ourselves!
As this was the case in the instance that we just considered, we have the intervention and the completion put into place by the very hand of God dealing with Nabal. 1 Sam 25:38+39, And about ten days later, it happened that the Lord struck Nabal, and he died. When David heard that Nabal was dead, he said, "Blessed be the Lord, who has pleaded the cause of my reproach from the hand of Nabal, and has kept back His servant from evil. The Lord has also returned the evildoing of Nabal on his own head." Then David sent a proposal to Abigail, to take her as his wife. 
God dealt with Nabal and protected David from murder. As well, Abigail, for the fact that she was lead by God to so intercede to prevent David from slaughtering her household, became the wife of the future King of Israel. We should always find ourselves enthralled with the declaration that God is to be blessed as we are divinely prevented from those blunders that could be so devastating to His glory and His testimony. We are to bless God as we see Him act in the manner that shows His preeminence and His sovereignty. 
This was a constant course with King David, as we find throughout the Psalms in his thanksgiving to God. In our next passage we find a most familiar chorus in terms of our seeking to bless the Lord. Ps 34:1-3, I will bless the Lord at all times; His praise shall continually be in my mouth. My soul shall make its boast in the Lord; The humble shall hear it and rejoice. O magnify the Lord with me, And let us exalt His name together. 
In dealing with this entire Psalm, Wiersbe has much to say with regard to this vital call to bless the Lord at all times. Quote, David gave thanks to the Lord by magnifying Him and exalting His name. See what He did for David: He answered prayer (…), provided his needs (…), delivered him from trouble (…), and protected him from danger (…). David didn't boast about his own cleverness or skill; he boasted about the Lord, who He is and what He does. David saw God's people as nothing in themselves, for they were only the humble and the poor (…); but they had everything because they belonged to the Lord. They feared the Lord (…), were set-apart ("saints") as His righteous ones (…), and were the servants of the Lord God (…). Knowing who we are in Christ and who the Lord is ought to make us want to bless the Lord. End quote. (from The Bible Exposition Commentary: Old Testament © 2001-2004 by Warren W. Wiersbe. All rights reserved.)
	As David rejoiced in the very person of God, revealed to him in part, so David offered up to God the every manner of blessing from himself and from all those who are the saints of God. God, after all, deserves only the best from each of those whom He has redeemed unto Himself. He is the One Who has offered Himself in order to make every provision for our way on this earth.
	The Psalmist highlights this truth in Ps 68:17-20, The chariots of God are myriads, thousands upon thousands; The Lord is among them as at Sinai, in holiness. Thou hast ascended on high, Thou hast led captive Thy captives; Thou hast received gifts among men, Even among the rebellious also, that the Lord God may dwell there. Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears our burden, The God who is our salvation. Selah. God is to us a God of deliverances; And to God the Lord belong escapes from death. 
	Blessed be the Lord, who daily bears our burden, The God who is our salvation. Do we recognize the fact that God has put Himself into this place for us? The Almighty and Infinite One has taken upon Himself the role of suffering servant for the sake of such as you and me. This is far beyond every measure of understanding as to the full impact that this course will have upon all the eternal ages of ages. God, Lord and Creator, takes our every need, our every fear, our every sin, our every hope, our every desire, our every burden, and our every daily situation and deals with it in His lovingkindness and tender mercy. 
Then, as we read in Ps 103:1-6, we have the full measure to which we should be seeking to bless the Lord. Bless the Lord, O my soul; And all that is within me, bless His holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, And forget none of His benefits; Who pardons all your iniquities; Who heals all your diseases; Who redeems your life from the pit; Who crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion; Who satisfies your years with good things, So that your youth is renewed like the eagle. The Lord performs righteous deeds, And judgments for all who are oppressed. 
	Once again, listen to Wiersbe as he expounds upon this Psalm of blessing unto God. Quote, To "bless the Lord" means to delight His heart by expressing love and gratitude for all He is and all He does. Parents are pleased when their children simply thank them and love them, without asking for anything. True praise comes from a grateful heart that sincerely wants to glorify and please the Lord. "All that is within me" means that all of our inner being is focused on the Lord — heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:28-30. And one of the scribes came and heard them arguing, and recognizing that He had answered them well, asked Him, "What commandment is the foremost of all?" Jesus answered, "The foremost is, 'Hear, O Israel! The Lord our God is one Lord; and you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.'). ["All that is within me”] also means that we are prepared to obey His will after our praise has ended. The word "all" is found at least nine times in the psalm (…), for the psalm is a call for total commitment to God. End quote. (from The Bible Exposition Commentary: Old Testament © 2001-2004 by Warren W. Wiersbe. All rights reserved.) 
Total commitment to God is what truly brings blessing to Him. How many of us are willing to give ourselves so completely for His purpose in this life that we live? We are willing to give to a point, but not many are ready to completely lay aside everything else in our lives for the sake of blessing Him.	
This is something that fully transcends what happens to us in this realm. It is easy to seek to bless God when all is going well with us, although so often we tend to just forget about His Sovereignty in action. But, when things are difficult and we are in pain and in torment and feel that life is attacking us with its utmost fury, what then? Let us turn to Job for this answer.
Job was a man who was blessed of God in so many ways. Then, as he was being tried and subjected to all physical torment and loss of family and earthly possessions and was encouraged to curse God and die, he makes the following statement. Job 1:20-22, Then Job arose and tore his robe and shaved his head, and he fell to the ground and worshiped. And he said, "Naked I came from my mother's womb, And naked I shall return there. The Lord gave and the Lord has taken away. Blessed be the name of the Lord." Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God. 
To seek to bless God does not depend upon our circumstances or situation. The fact is that when we are only seeking to bless Him in our times of goodness and fullness, we may well simply be finding satisfaction in how God is treating us. Our focal point, rather than truly being on the blessing that we are to God is on how He has blessed us. We become the target of the statement rather than God, Alone. 
This is the point that Job brings to the forefront. He came into this world with nothing and he will leave this world with nothing. What we have or do not have is immaterial in the reality that God is to be blessed. This is the heart which is to be forthcoming from us no matter how rich or poor, full or empty, happy or sad our day-to-day walk on this earth. 
We are not to put ourselves and our pitiful plight above the manifested glory of the Lord God, Our Creator and Our Savior. We are to see the truth that our place is utterly insignificant to the blessing that God is to receive as we seek to please Him with our whole being! As we can tear our eyes away from our daily grind and concentrate on His every Character and Nature of Being, so will our souls join together with that of Job in complete recognition that God’s blessing is not dependent on our state of affairs. He is to be blessed because He is the Lord God Almighty.
Please note the last statement of this passage concerning Job. Through all this Job did not sin nor did he blame God. Oh that this would be true of each one of us. Sadly, I put myself at the forefront of the fact that I have often sought to blame God when things went wrong in my life. I would confront Him with those statements along the lines of “If you had only intervened, this never would have happened.” Or “If You had only answered my prayer the way I wanted you to do, I would not be in this mess.” Or “How could You let this happen to me? Don’t you know I love You and thought You would take care of me?”
We tend to blame God when things don’t go the way we think they should because we try to put our thoughts and our ways and our ideas upon Him to carry out, like a butler or servant fulfilling the wishes of a master. Such wanton disregard for Who God is and such audacity on our part brings nothing but pain and agony and further torment upon our heads as we futility try to point the finger at God and make Him the fall Guy for our misery. 
That was not the way of Job’s heart, even though he had much more misery in his life than many of us will ever experience. Through all the pain and the suffering, he did not blame God, but rather offered up the utmost and humble prayer that God would be blessed, no matter what!
That should cause us to join together with the heart of Ps 72:18+19, Blessed be the Lord God, the God of Israel, Who alone works wonders. And blessed be His glorious name forever; And may the whole earth be filled with His glory. Amen, and Amen. 
Oh that the Holy Spirit would so work this longing and aspiration in my heart, in your heart, in our collective heart to so bless God. It would completely transform our every thought and hope and idea of what it means to be a Christian in the days in which we live. There is so much that seems to want to grab our attention away from simply living lives that bring blessing to God today, tomorrow, and for all of eternity. God truly does deserve nothing less from His Redeemed people. 
Ps 113:1-4, Praise the Lord! Praise, O servants of the Lord. Praise the name of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord From this time forth and forever. From the rising of the sun to its setting The name of the Lord is to be praised. The Lord is high above all nations; His glory is above the heavens. So be it!
And he said, "Blessed be the Lord, the God of my master Abraham, who has not forsaken His lovingkindness and His truth... Amen.

This morning’s benediction is Ps 96:2-4. Sing to the Lord, bless His name; Proclaim good tidings of His salvation from day to day. Tell of His glory among the nations, His wonderful deeds among all the peoples. For great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised; He is to be feared above all gods. Amen.