Growing up, there are certain milestones that kids look forward to hitting. Double-digit birthday… When you hit the age of 10, now you’re big. Or, thirteen… now you’re an old teenager. How about 16! Now you can drive! Or when you turn 18… the age you can finally vote. If you’re an adult, one of the milestones was the age of 25… the year your car insurance finally went down in cost a bit.

For our kids, there was one more milestone that they looked forward to hitting… 14 years old. The age at which they could open their own bank account. Carter had been talking about this a while before he turned 14. And when he finally turned 14, it was almost all he could talk about. “Can I open my bank account now? When can you take me to open my bank account? Today? Can we go after school? I really want to open my bank account. Can we go tomorrow?” He kept asking. And pushing. And finally, the day came when we took him to open his very own bank account.

That day, we sat down with one of our bank’s representatives and filled out the paperwork to open Carter’s first bank account. He was so excited. As we were going through the process, it finally came time to get what he really wanted… his very own ATM card. The bank representative talked to him about what the card was and how to use it. And she asked him what he wanted his security number to be (he was a 14 year old boy, but held it together enough to NOT give the number he wanted to give the lady). We finished up the process and walked out the door. Needless to say Carter was super excited.

Over the next few months after opening his bank account, Carter and a couple of his friends would meet up on their bikes and head to the ATM to pull money out to get snacks at the local store. He’d get a text from his friends and then tell me or Jami that he was riding his bike to take money out so he and his friends could get a pop, chips, or some candy. He loved that ATM card. It was there, in his pocket, whenever he needed money to get what he wanted.

It’s interesting to me, that as I look back over this story about Carter and his ATM card, how it relates to me and my relationship with God as I look back on my life. Like, how, when I played baseball, I’d pray and ask God to help our team win. Or, as I walked up to the batter’s box, I’d pray for God to help me get on base. Or when I needed help on an exam, I’d reach out and pray to God. Or when things got tough, or I got in trouble, I’d pray to God and ask Him for help.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying that doing any of those things are bad or that we shouldn’t pray to God in those circumstances. But as I look back over my life… even into my adult life, I can definitely see a pattern where I placed God in my pocket only to pull him out when I needed to make a withdrawal for help. He was in essence, my ATM card. More times than I care to admit to, I’d treat God as my ATM when I wanted things to go my way.

But there’s so much more than that when it comes to our relationship with God. God isn’t simply an ATM. And, in reality, God really does want to bless you… to bless us. Check this out:

The passage I want to share with you today is from Numbers chapter seven, verses 22-27

The Lord said to Moses, “Tell Aaron and his sons, ‘This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them:

The Lord bless you and keep you;

the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you;

the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.”’

“So they will put My name on the Israelites, and I will bless them.” Numbers 7:22-27

All throughout the Bible we can look and find where God wants to, and chooses to bless His people. From the Old Testament all the way through the New Testament. And that still holds true today as well. It’s not lost on me that, about two weeks ago I was at a camp with a bunch of middle school students. These kids came together from different schools and different families to have fun and experience God as one group. Being at camp, I knew that what I spoke over those kids had the potential to help change their lives. It had the potential to either make camp or break camp.

I don’t know if you’ve ever had someone speak into you or over you. I have. I’ve had people speak life into me. And I’ve had people speak what amounted to death into me. And I’ve had people who were very close to me call me the worst of the worst names. Names that would affect me and mark my life for years to come. All throughout camp two weeks ago, counselor after counselor spoke life into and over those middle school students. We wanted those kids to know that God is for them. That God wants to bless His people.

And just like those middle school campers, the Israelites in the verses we just read, were in their own camp from their own areas and families. Sure, they didn’t have “the blob” or “the gusher” (water rides at camp.) But God still wanted to let His people, the Israelites, know that He longed to provide a blessing over them. It’s important to know that, by this time the Israelites had already been freed from slavery in Egypt. And even though they had seen numerous miracles by God, they had still turned from God over and over again. They had still questioned God. They made idols into gods. They had longed to go back to where they had come from as slaves because they hadn’t trusted God to provide for their needs. In other words, they weren’t perfect people who always had their eyes and hearts pointed towards God. Yet, out of God’s love, he wanted the Israelites to know His very specific blessing on them.

First, He wanted the priests (Aaron and his sons) to say, “The Lord bless you and keep you.” This is not just a general blessing, but it’s the specific protection of the Lord as we ask Him to “keep you,” words that have the sense of guarding or watching over someone. For Israel, this would have had a very practical application as they were surrounded by enemies, and God had promised to protect them as long as they were faithful to Him. For believers in Jesus, the protection of God has a somewhat different meaning. While believers hope and pray for physical protection from enemies, we know that God has not promised this. In fact, He has promised persecution (2 Timothy 3:12). However, God has also promised that nothing shall be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:36–38).

Secondly, the prayer also says, “the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you.” This line of the blessing has to do with experiencing God’s favor. When a person sees a loved one that is liked or loved, his or her face “lights up right.” Well, God’s “face” radiates divine favor. Ancient Israel could expect God’s loving, gracious response to their calls for help. Believers in Jesus have the promise of God’s never-ending love (Romans 8:26–38, mentioned above) and have already experienced God’s gracious response to save us from our greatest enemies—sin and death through Jesus (1 Corinthians 15:56–57).

And thirdly, the prayer says, “the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.” We all know the faces of mom… or of a parent. We’ve all had “the look,” you know, the glare from an upset parent. I’ve experienced it MANY times over. And I’ve given it MANY times over to my own kids as well. This isn’t what this is referring to. It’s the face of a smiling mom or dad towards their children. It’s quite literally the look of love. This line of the Aaronic Blessing continues the theme of the “face” of God and has the idea of His people receiving His full attention. When the people were faithful to God, His “face” was toward them with the result that they would have peace. Peace (shalom) is more than just an absence of warfare but a completeness or wholeness and maturity. Judges 2 records what happened when God turned His face from His people for a time and they lost shalom, but He quickly turned to them again when they repented. The believer in Jesus has been granted peace with God though Jesus Christ (Romans 5:1), and we can also access the peace of God by trusting Him to take care of us. Prayer is the active means by which we can experience this peace (Philippians 4:6–7). Meaning, when we pray to Jesus as a believer in Jesus, the Holy Spirit will infuse us with the peace of Christ.

You see, for ancient Israel, the Aaronic Blessing expressed the highest state of blessing that the nation would enjoy as they were faithful to God. For us today, when we trust in Jesus and call on His name to save us from our sin, we too can have and experience this complete blessing from God Himself. We don’t have to be perfect. We just need to trust in Jesus and call on His name to save us.

God desires to be more than an ATM blessing that’s tucked inside our pockets only to be pulled out when we need Him. He longs to speak a complete blessing over our lives. And it’s my prayer that you’ll experience that blessing as you trust in Jesus and seek to have a true, joy-filled relationship with God.