FRIDAY 10th
Psalm 103
NIV (v1-5) ‘Praise the LORD, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the LORD, my soul, and forget not all his benefits—who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.’
ESV (v1-5) ‘Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.’
They say that the first sign of madness is talking to yourself, but there is nothing about madness here in these verses as the psalmist talks to himself and tells himself to ‘Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!’ Perhaps it is a good thing to talk to ourselves, especially when it come to the realm of praise and worship, for perhaps too often we are far to slow to praise the Lord and to give him thanks for all he has done. These few verses before us today are probably the verses of Scripture that I repeat more than any other, as I remind myself of the benefits of salvation and the need to bless the Lord and to give thanks. The psalmist says, ‘forget not all his benefits’, it is as if it is all to easy to get caught up with so many other things that we lose sight of the goodness of God and of all that he has done for us, and yet when we stop and consider what he has done, we ask the question how could we ever forget? It is amazing, it is mind blowing when we think of what God has done for us in the realm of salvation and of all the benefits that are attached to knowing him as our Saviour.
Think again today of the goodness of God, think of all that he has done for you, think of all the blessings and benefits of your salvation and bless the Lord, let everything that is within you bless his holy name.
In the book of Ephesians 1:3 Paul writes, ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places’ he continues to list so many things, again in 1 Peter 1:3 Peter writes, ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead’, and he also continues to list many things, so talk to yourself today, forget about it being the first sign of madness, on this occasion it is a conversation that you will have with yourself that will lead to blessing as you heed what you are instructing yourself to do, ‘Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me bless his holy name.’