We live busy lives. So busy that many times we forget what is truly important. We forget the ways that God has benefited us. We see prayers answered and take those answered prayers for granted. Sometimes we even think we are deserving of answered prayers. We forget that it is by the grace of God that He hears us and blesses us.
David Addresses His Soul
Psalm 103 is considered one of the great Psalms of gratitude and thankfulness in the Bible. In this Psalm we might assume that David is talking to God or to the Israelites, but that would be wrong. David tells us in verse one who he is addressing—his soul. David is quite literally commanding his soul to do better. He is telling his soul to bless God's holy name for all of His benefits. The benefits of God are the ways He has graciously dealt with us through our lives. With David we will bless the Lord - Psalm 103.
Bless The Lord O My Soul - Psalm 103
We are commanded to bless God. In Psalm 134: 1-2, we are told to lift up our hands and bless the Lord. In Hebrew, the word bless is related to a Hebrew word that means to kneel. When we bless God we aren't giving God anything, because He needs nothing. We are praising and giving thanks to Him. Blessing God doesn't exactly mean thanking. In this instance to bless the Lord is more about praising the essence of who God is. We are really speaking of how blessed God is. He is the source of all of our blessings, simply because that is who God really is.
What Is The Soul
What does David mean when he speaks of his soul? The soul is both the physical and life giving spirit that we are given by God. Literally, God's breath that gave us life. It is everything that we are, everything that makes you, you.
Bless God With Your All
David knew that when he blessed God he had not been doing it with everything that he was. This Psalm is a wake up call for him. Remember! Remember the benefits with everything that is within you. How terribly easy it is to take those benefits for granted. How easily we haphazardly worship and praise God.
Bless God For His Benefits
What are these benefits that David is talking about? In Psalm 103:3-5, he lists them:
He forgives our iniquities, literally all the things in our lives that twist and distort our soul from being what God had perfectly planned for it. This is the first and greatest benefit from God; the restoration of our soul.
He heals our diseases. This can refer to spiritual or physical diseases. We may go to a skilled doctor and be treated with the best medical care, but ultimately our healing comes from God. And because of God's forgiveness, if healing doesn't come in this life it will in the next.
He redeems us from the pit. By this David means that God delivers us from death. Believers will never truly die (John 11: 25-26).
He crowns us with His great compassion, tender mercies and love. God Himself shows favor to those who are His faithful servants. His tender mercies, His gentle concerns, are towards us, as weak and needy creatures.
He satisfies us with what is truly good. No satisfaction can come from the world. True satisfaction can only come from God. The good that David is talking about is what God knows is good for us, not necessarily what we think is good.
Because of these good things that we are satisfied with, our strength is renewed like when we were young. This isn't talking about physical strength, but spiritual strength. It is God working in our lives by loving, encouraging, forgiving, and transforming us that we are made spiritually strong.
Bless God For What He Has Done
In Psalm 103: 6-7, David remembers and blesses God for what He has done for David's people.
God cares for and gives justice to people who are oppressed. Just as the Israelites labored as slaves in Egypt for 400 years before their deliverer, Moses, appeared, so the oppressed of today will have justice done for them. Maybe not in their life time, but eventually it will surely happen. He is a righteous and just God. He is faithful.
God loves us enough to "make known His ways" just as He did to Moses. God is not some cloud in the sky deity who stays hidden from us except for a few stray thunderbolts. No! Our God shows Himself strong for us. He makes Himself so known to us that He comes down in the form of a man, Jesus, to live and walk among us.
Bless God For His Graciousness
In Psalm 103: 8-10, David reminds us of the graciousness of God.
Unlike us, God doesn't get angry quickly, and He has an almost endless supply of mercy that He shows us. God doesn't hold grudges. When he does become angry with us for our rebellion, it will give way to compassion and forgiveness immediately when we seek His face.
David says, although we may have been disciplined for our sins by God, we haven't been dealt with as we deserved.
Bless God For His Mercy
In Psalm 103: 11-12, we are told about the greatness of God's mercy and forgiveness.
David explains that God's mercy is almost immeasurable towards those "who fear Him".
He removes our transgressions as far as the east is from the west. I love this commentary on this verse,
“As the east and the west can never meet in one point, but be for ever at the same distance from each other, so our sins and their decreed punishment are removed to an eternal distance by his mercy.” (Clarke)
God Is Compassionate
In Psalm 103: 13-14, David tells us that if we fear Him, He will pity us like a father pities a child. God knows our frailties and our weaknesses better than anyone. When we see our own children struggling with life; making poor choices, trying to do what is right, suffering with sickness, we feel pity or compassion. In this verse, it means that God takes action. He does something to alleviate that suffering, just like a human father would.
God Is Merciful
In Psalm 103: 15-18, God promises his mercy on his frail creation. He promises mercy towards His obedient children who fear Him. God's great mercy and love is forever and without limit.
God Is Sovereign
In Psalm 103:19, David tells us that God's kingdom "rules over all". There is no aspect of creation that God does not command. God is sovereign over His creation. The author of 2 Chronicles 20:6 says, "You rule over all the kingdoms of the nations. In your hand are power and might, so that none is able to withstand you".
All Creation Bless God
Finally, in Psalm 103: 20-22, David calls on the angels in Heaven to bless God and goes further to say that all of God's works, every creation of God, should bless Him. As Psalm 19:1 says, the glory of God is even proclaimed by the Heavens that He created. Paul echoes this in 2 Corinthians 9:15 when he proclaims,
"Thanks be to God for his inexpressible gift!"
Bless God In Our Prayers With Intentionality
This call to bless God is not just for the angels and the heavens, but for each of us in our daily lives. When we pray it is easy to forget to bless God. I think it might be better if we were more intentional in our prayers. Maybe before you pray, take a moment to read Psalm 103 or other similar Psalms, and reflect on your own life. Remember that, "once I was lost but now I am found". Bless God for that. Bless God by your obedience, your love, your zeal to know Him and serve Him and others. Bless the Lord, O my soul!
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