As you give yourself to the discipline of blessing the Lord and forgetting none of His benefits, His strength and gracious kindness begin to transform your life. You realize that you could never earn any of His benefits; you recognize that you are the recipient of unfathomable, unending grace.

Every benefit David extolled in Psalm 103 was based on what was still in the future—the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. Now, in Christ, all these benefits belong to you. Unlike David, you have experienced the ultimate benefit—new birth—as a result of your faith in Jesus as Lord. You are a new creation, the old you has passed away and all things are made new, and He has promised to be with you always, even to the end of the age (see 2 Corinthians 5:17, Matthew 28:20).

The Lord has provided for all your needs; He has forgiven your sins, He has provided healing for your body, He has redeemed you from hell, and He has crowned you with lovingkindness and compassion. And like David, you will also find the need to remind yourself to forget none of those benefits. It is far too easy to drift away from His inestimable wonders despite how long you’ve known the Lord. You must continually stir yourself up by way of reminder concerning this treasure trove of benefits (see 2 Peter 1:13).

David wrote that the Lord “satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”  NASB says He satisfies your years with good things; NIV says He satisfies your desires with good things; and KJV states that He satisfieth thy mouth with good things. The Hebrew word translated years, desires, and mouth is `adiy, and actually means “ornament”. It can also represent the bit in a horse’s mouth.

No matter which meaning you prefer, the bottom line is that one benefit of the Lord is to satisfy you with good, whether in  years, desires, or your mouth! Perhaps, in line with the “bit in a horse’s mouth” definition, as you develop a lifestyle of filling your mouth with blessing God and recounting His benefits, you become like a disciplined thoroughbred, allowing God’s bit—a self-controlled mouth—to direct the course of your life toward fruitfulness and good (see James 3:3).

Who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

God satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle. This is an amazing statement. It is your relationship with God which renews your youth, not Estée Lauder, workouts, or a scalpel. Sarah, the wife of Abraham, and Rebekah, Isaac’s wife, both experienced renewed youth as beautiful older women (see Genesis 12 and 26). Caleb, at 85, was as strong as he was when he was forty (see Joshua 14:7-12). Psalm 92:14 says of the righteous, “They will still yield fruit in old age; they shall be full of sap and very green.”

When your youth is renewed like the eagle, you are able to rise up above challenges and soar close to God, hidden under His feathers (see Psalm 91:4). Your perspective is broader than the vision of those who cling tightly to the ground; you seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God (see Colossians 3:1-2).

The Apostle Paul also wrote of renewal. He said, “Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day” (2 Corinthians 4:16). In a youth-obsessed culture, it is easy to get sucked into the vacuum of superficiality and get fixated on externals. Yet David the king of Israel, surrounded by beautiful women, magnificent opulence, and men of war with imposing strength, remained strong as long as he blessed the Lord, and he was effective in his reign only as he kept his eyes fixed on the benefits of his God.

Isaiah 40:31 testifies that the individual who waits on the Lord “will gain new strength; they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.” Are you exhausted, worn out, feeling as if life has passed you by? Wait on the Lord. Command your soul to bless Him, even in your exhaustion, and recount to yourself all of His benefits. Renewal will come to your soul, and your body will drink in the refreshing. And you? You will mount up, renewed by the Lord, and soar like the mighty eagle.

Bless the Lord!

Dorothy

When you train yourself to bless the Lord, you align yourself with His purposes. You may not be clear as to what those specific purposes for you are, but when you step out of your feelings, logic, and the fast pace of life to give God the honor He deserves, He has a way of depositing  understanding into your being, thereby empowering you to make wise decisions.

His benefits are not subject to the erratic conditions of our age or the particulars of your situation. His benefits are rock-solid because He is rock-solid.

David the psalmist commanded himself to bless the Lord. He commanded all that was within him—mind, will, and emotions—to bless the Lord’s holy name. He required himself to forget none of the benefits of the Lord. Yes, David was tremendously successful, but he was also tremendously tempted and attacked. It was due to his strict dedication to bless God and to forget none of His benefits that, when all was said and done in his life, it could be honestly recorded of him in Acts 13:22, “I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will.” Even after the enormous failures of his life, David left a testimony that he was a man after God’s own heart who would do all His will. Why? Because he commanded himself to bless the Lord and to forget none of His benefits!

The Lord pardons all your iniquities, heals all your diseases, and redeems your life from the pit. These benefits parallel beautifully with what Jesus accomplished for you on the cross, yet there is more. Remember, every benefit David enumerated was merely a shadow of what we have been privileged to possess in Christ. We have the better covenant, based on better promises (see Hebrews 8:6).

Included among the benefits of the Lord is this one: He crowns you with lovingkindness and compassion (Psalm 103:4b). Your sins are forgiven, you have access to His healing bounty, and you are absolutely redeemed from the pit of hell. And to top it off, He places a crown on your head of lovingkindness and compassion!

I see three streams flowing from this one benefit.

First of all is the crown of lovingkindness and compassion. Your God views you, from the top of your head on down, with great favor and tender love. The crown of lovingkindness and compassion that He has placed upon you marks you as His and sets you apart. I have observed younger children on field trips wearing the same brightly colored T-shirts. This makes them visible so their teachers can spot them without difficulty. The crown God has placed on your head makes you easily visible to Him; it separates you from the rest of the crowd and grants Him smooth access for dispensing His love and compassion upon you. If you are His, you are a recipient of His lovingkindness and compassion. Don’t let yourself forget it.

Secondly, we have been crowned with lovingkindness and compassion. One definition of the Hebrew word for crown, `atar, is “to surround”.  (http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H5849&t=KJV ) In other words, He surrounds us with lovingkindness and compassion. Wherever you go, you can be confident that the Lord is going to see to it that you are surrounded with favor. That hasn’t been your experience? Then bless the Lord and forget none of His benefits! My sister, who has not yet received Jesus as Lord, recently told me that she challenged herself to think positive thoughts for a set number of days. She was shocked when strangers began going out of their way to be kind to her. If this principle works for a person who has yet to be convinced about the claims of Christ, then how much more will those of us who are in Christ—recipients of the benefits and promises—find lovingkindness and compassion surrounding us as we refuse to forget His benefits? Trust Him in this and refuse to forget this portion of His benefits. You will soon find that you are surrounded by a wide assortment of loving, compassionate, and favorable “coincidences”.

Thirdly, when you are crowned, it signifies that you are a member of a royal family. You have a crown to wear because your father or mother is of royal lineage. In your case, your Father is the King of the Universe, and His Son, your elder Brother, is King of kings and Lord of lords.

As you go about life, you are crowned with His favor and compassion. But this crown is not just about you. It is your identification with the Father, and it gives you an ambassadorship wherever you go. Yes, as an ambassador, you are a very privileged person, but you are also accountable to act as a clear representative of the One who sends you. You are crowned and surrounded by His lovingkindness and compassion, and you are a representative of His lovingkindness and compassion. “Much will be required of everyone who has been given much. And even more will be expected of the one who has been entrusted with more” (Luke 12:48, Holman Christian Standard Bible). That expectation is not to be viewed as tedious or difficult—“the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us” (Romans 5:5b). It is because of that crown of lovingkindness and compassion that you are empowered to bring compassion and grace to the people in your life. If it feels impossible to you right now, then now’s the time you need to bless the Lord and to refuse to forget that He’s crowned you!

You wear a crown that targets you for God’s lovingkindness and compassion; you are surrounded by lovingkindness and compassion; and you are an ambassador of God’s lovingkindness and compassion. This is who you are!

Don’t forget it!

Dorothy

Have you been commanding your soul to bless the Lord? If you have, you have likely experienced some resistance, but as you stick with it, strength, victory, joy, and resolve will rise up within you.

While you bless the Lord, are you also focusing on His benefits? He has pardoned all your iniquities and is the One who heals all your diseases. Both of these benefits were foretold by the prophet Isaiah. He wrote, “Surely our griefs He Himself bore, and our sorrows He carried; yet we ourselves esteemed Him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But He was pierced through for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the chastening for our well-being fell upon Him, and by His scourging we are healed” (Isaiah 53:4-5).

The Lord has also redeemed your life from the pit according to the psalmist. In Tuesday’s blog, I mentioned that the benefit, “Who pardons all your iniquities” was the most important benefit on the list, and therefore was mentioned first.

You may wonder why I believe that pardoning of sin is more important than having a life that is redeemed from the pit. Romans 5:12 states, “Therefore, just as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned.” It was Adam’s sin that opened the door to sickness, death, and loss of fellowship with God. Without the complete forgiveness and remission of sin, neither you nor I would be able to enter eternal life with God when we died. The alternative—eternal separation from God—is the only available outcome for us unless we receive full forgiveness of our sin through the substitutionary work of Jesus Christ.

With this in mind, when David lists the fact that God redeems your life from the pit, this benefit hinges upon receiving the pardon of sin. First accept His wonderful forgiveness of your sin through Jesus Christ, and then, when you take Jesus as your Lord, He absolutely redeems your life from eternal separation from God!

Who redeems your life from the pit…

What is the pit? One writer asked, “If life is a bowl of cherries, then why am I in the pits?” Is the pit as simple as this tongue-in-cheek comment suggests, merely a drag of a life? Or is it more specific, referring, perhaps, to what is commonly called the “pit of hell”?

The word pit in Hebrew is shachath and can mean a literal pit or, indeed, the pit of hell. It also can refer to destruction or can signify the grave (see http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H7845&t=KJV ).

Therefore, whether He is redeeming your life from hell, an early grave, or a pit of destruction poised to ensnare you for months or years, He redeems your life from the pit. It is my opinion that this benefit is good towards all of the above. The bottom line is: He redeems your life from the pit. Don’t forget it!

What exactly does the Lord do when He redeems something? The answer to this question caught me off guard.

Ga’al, the Hebrew for “redeem” means, first of all, “to redeem, act as kinsman-redeemer, avenge, revenge, ransom, do the part of a kinsman.” The source further points out that this word infers that the One who redeems “…act[s] as kinsman, [does] the part of next of kin, act[s] as kinsman redeemer” (http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=H1350&t=KJV) .

When God redeems your life from the pit, He does so as your next of kin. He redeems your life because of His intimate sense of kinship with you. To Him, you are His next of kin, and He relates to you as such, with tender love, mercy, and concern.

At times, you can feel as if no one really cares, as if you are absolutely alone in life. Of course, as a believer, you know that God is for you and loves you, but that truth doesn’t necessarily hit home when you feel isolated, ignored, or invisible.

But when you read that God, as your next of kin, went to bat to redeem you—not just a nebulous “everyone”—can you picture Him, as I did, peering throughout history from before the beginning of time for the exact way and due season to redeem you—you, yourself? As I thought about this, I realized that I had tears in my eyes.

Perhaps you have no one in your life—either as next of kin or dear friend—willing to go to bat for you, to take up your cause, or to simply be there for you when you need a hand out of the pit. But here’s the good news:  you do have a Redeemer. He, the God of the universe, has chosen to be your next of kin. Even if others forsake you, He is not ashamed of you. He, from the very foundation of the earth, carefully prepared the way for your life to be redeemed from destruction. And that’s worth remembering.

Hebrews 2:11 says it very clearly. “For both He who sanctifies and those who are sanctified are all from one Father; for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren.”

Your God—your closest Kinsman—through the blood of His dear Son, has redeemed your life from the pit. Never forget it.

Blessings to you as you bask in this redemptive love of your closest Kinsman!

Dorothy

David the psalmist commanded himself to bless the Lord. You sometimes feel like blessing the Lord, but if you’re like me, that desire comes and goes. I admit it—I have nothing to hide—there are plenty of times when the last thing I want to do is to bless the Lord. Fortunately, I have the example of David, and I see him, the great psalmist of Israel, commanding himself to bless the Lord. That tells me very clearly that even powerful worshippers don’t always feel like blessing God! But David did it anyway; he insisted that everything within him bless the holy name of the Lord—mind and emotions as well, whether they wanted to or not.

He also instructed his soul to forget none of God’s benefits. Hebrews 2:1 states, “For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it.” Two witnesses—one from Psalm 103 in the Old Testament and one in Hebrews 2 from the New—warn that it is far easier to forget the Lord’s benefits and to drift away from His Word than we care to think. That’s why David commanded himself to forget none of the Lord’s benefits. He was intimately aware of the drift factor.

You and I are also more than capable—despite our “pedigree”—to drift away from the Word of God. That’s why I have challenged you this week to challenge yourself to forget none of His benefits. Command yourself to think upon what He’s done for you. Insist that you spend time recounting the benefits Jesus has provided for you. And bless Him as you meditate on His provisions.

The Lord has not only provided pardon for your sins, but He has also included healing in His package of benefits for you. This aspect of God’s benefit package is still somewhat controversial for some reason; however, controversy does not negate the fact that it is written, “Who heals all your diseases.”

David understood that healing was one of the benefits that God provided in the earlier benefit package. Now, in Christ, healing is still included in our covenant with God—a covenant that is described in Hebrews as “a better covenant, which was established upon better promises” (Hebrews 8:6b).

In Matthew 8, after Jesus touched the hand of Peter’s sick mother-in-law, she got out of bed, healed of her illness, and busied herself with serving Him. Matthew followed that anecdote with the following commentary, “This was to fulfill what was spoken through Isaiah the prophet: ‘He Himself took our infirmities and carried away our diseases'” (see Matthew 8:14-17).

After Jesus rose from the dead and appeared to His disciples, He commissioned them to “go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation” (Mark 16:15). He further instructed them to “lay hands on the sick, and they will recover” (Mark 16:18b).

Peter, an eyewitness of the life of Jesus, declared to everyone present at Cornelius the Gentile’s home, “You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him” (Acts 10:38), revealing to Jews and Gentiles alike the universality of the healing mercies of God, available to everyone, despite their background.

Peter later wrote in his first letter, “and He Himself bore our sins in His body on the cross, so that we might die to sin and live to righteousness; for by His wounds you were healed” (I Peter 2:24), further instructing believers—both in his time and for the ages to come—that the substitutionary work of Jesus on the cross was for the purpose of forgiving sin and healing disease. Matthew had quoted Isaiah 53 in his commentary after Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law; here Peter quoted the same chapter in Isaiah when he declared, “for by His wounds you were healed” (see Isaiah 53:5).

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits…Who heals all your diseases.

Do not allow yourself the luxury of forgetting the benefit of healing that Jesus purchased for you at such a steep price. Don’t give yourself wiggle-room to drift away from or neglect so great a salvation (see Hebrews 2:3). Since healing is one of your benefits, like David you must make a conscious effort not to let it drop off the radar of your thoughts.

Are you concerned about how the sweeping overhaul of our nation’s healthcare industry will ultimately impact your life? David, the psalmist of old, has left you a very timely and clear set of instructions.

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget none of His benefits…Who heals all your diseases.

Refuse to forget the healing benefit that is yours through Jesus.

Dorothy

“This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it; for then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have success. Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.” Joshua 1:8-9

“My son, give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your sight; keep them in the midst of your heart. For they are life to those who find them and health to all their body.”   Proverbs 4:20-22

“So we have the prophetic word strongly confirmed. You will do well to pay attention to it, as to a lamp shining in a dismal place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts.”      2 Peter 1:19  Holman Christian Standard Bible

I have challenged you to challenge yourself to bless the Lord on a daily basis. Do it whether you feel like it or not. Do it whether it is practical or not. Do it when you have energy; do it when you are exhausted. Do it when you’re at the top of your game; do it when you have failed. Do it in the midst of the daily grind and the monotony of life.

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! (Psalm 103:1-2.)

I don’t know about you, but I love benefits. I was thrilled to have a job that provided a wonderful benefit package, and had that package been withdrawn by the powers-that-be, you’d better believe they would have heard about it!

But God has provided an even better benefit package for His people—one that puts corporations, unions, businesses, and all other employers to shame. That package of benefits was superb in David’s time; however, the upgraded benefits we have received in Christ are top shelf—the premiere, highest-priced package—complete and with nothing lacking. And those benefits have been paid for in full by our Employer, Provider, Physician, Counselor, and Protector!

Everything that David discovered in his benefit package from God is included in the far more expansive package that Christ purchased for you by His death on the cross. It was God’s early benefit package that David commanded his soul not to forget. Have you ever commanded yourself to forget none of God’s benefits? My guess is that now would be an excellent time to make yourself remember all of them.

Why would you need to force yourself not to forget any of God’s benefits, seeing as they are so wonderful? Hebrews 2:1 answers that question. “For this reason we must pay much closer attention to what we have heard, so that we do not drift away from it.” God’s benefits are first spiritual, and as they are received by you in faith, then they filter down into the natural realm of your life and bring transformation. As a result of this sequence, a waiting period usually occurs between faith and its manifestation, and this is the time when impatience and distraction can lead to drifting away from—or forgetting—what you know about God and His benefits. Soul, forget none of His benefits!

David commanded himself not to forget that it was the Lord “Who pardons all your iniquities”. The very first benefit listed—and therefore the most important—was the forgiveness of sin. David knew God as the One who pardoned all his iniquities, but God was able to pardon that sin because of the Sacrificial Lamb to come, Jesus Christ. God’s forgiveness of everyone’s sin—past, present, and future—was, then and now, based solely on the fact that a Substitute came to earth. That Substitute took the punishment each of us deserved and bore the full price for our sin. That’s why a Holy God can pardon you and me—our sins have already been judged and the punishment has already been borne by our Substitute, Jesus.

When I was a teacher, I sometimes had substitutes come into my classroom for me when I was sick or had a workshop to attend. Although I left plans for that sub, anything that happened that day in my class was on the sub. If a student had a temper tantrum, the sub dealt with it. If someone threw up on themselves, I didn’t have to clean it up. If—God forbid—a shooter entered my room that day, it would be on the sub, not me.

Our Substitute, the Lord Jesus Christ, took up our lesson plans—human flesh and blood—and in our place bore the full brunt of the punishment that we deserved. Because of this huge sacrifice of substitution, God is free to pardon our iniquities once and for all—and He has.

Now I command my soul to never forget that the Lord has pardoned all my iniquities. David only saw a shadow of the Messiah’s coming substitution through the sacrificial bulls, goats, and lambs, but I know the Messiah, Himself, Jesus, the Lamb of God, who substituted for me that day on the cross. And you know Him, too, if you have made Him your Lord. If not, He’s a prayer away, ready to enter your life for the asking. With Him comes the full package of benefits, already paid for and freely given.

Never let yourself forget that He has pardoned your iniquities. Keep this truth close to your heart, and bless the Lord! You are pardoned. Your sins have been forgiven!

Thank You, Lord!

Dorothy

Benefits. All over the nation, people are worried about losing their benefits.  Millions have already lost theirs. Several million more have lost their jobs. Others have never had any benefits at all. And some of those who do receive benefits are facing pay cuts. Our nation is in a benefit crisis. And that’s not even the greatest issue facing us!

The overhauling of the healthcare system in the United States has solved a few problems; however, it has created a multitude of other problems that we’ll just have to wait until it gets implemented to find out about all of them (to paraphrase a certain representative from California who will remain unnamed). For the last several months, more and more information is being made available about this massive legislation and its effects. Yet even now, less than two months before the exchanges open on October 1^st, prices for the various mandatory insurance products are either missing or are next to impossible to find on the government website sponsoring it (and I’ve looked). As a result, the adults of this nation are like grain thrown into the air to fall back down into the winnowing basket, only to be tossed up again and again and again.

A sense of disturbance and lack of balance seems to permeate the atmosphere over the nation. Equilibrium and the comforting sense of sameness are being challenged and toppled. Change is good, we hear, yet if it is, why do so many Americans feel utterly disoriented?

Ready or not, here we come. This is the mix into which we are being tossed, and all of us have major decisions to make. Most of the choices before us are neither desirable nor comfortable, but one choice—one glowing, life-giving, sustaining choice—stands alone, immovable in the storm called Change swirling around us.

“…I am the Lord, I change not” (Malachi 3:6a). Standing rock-solid in the midst of the upheaval rolling in on every wave is the One who is the same, yesterday, today, and forever (see Hebrews 13:8). He is the Ancient of Days and has witnessed the beginning and end of each generation as well as the rise and fall of every kingdom and empire. And it is to Him alone that we are ultimately accountable.

The psalmist David experienced more than his share of chaos and upheaval. Although he became the king of Israel, he was not immune to conflict, turmoil, and challenge—even while on the throne.

Psalm 103 was born in the heart of this man very familiar with difficulties and trials. When David wrote it, he was speaking to himself, not God. Let this truth sink in. David was commanding himself to bless the Lord.

You, too, in the face of the various complexities of your life, have the choice before you: bless the Lord. Here’s how it might play out within your soul.

Soul, bless the Lord. Bless Him whether you feel like it or not. Yes, emotions, that includes you, too. Mind, bless God! Will, bless the Lord! You don’t feel like it? I didn’t ask you if you felt like it! Just do it–bless the Lord! All that is within me—mind, feelings, dreams, desires, hopes, fears, concerns, gifts, talents, dysfunctions—all that is within me, bless His holy name! (And by the way, devil, if you insist on tagging along, I’m going to be blessing the Lord. It won’t be very comfortable for you. Too bad, so sad!)

As David directed his soul yet again to bless the Lord in verse 2, he instructed himself to go a step further. Not only did he insist that he bless the Lord, but he commanded himself to forget none of God’s benefits.

David had both a clear understanding of his dependence on God and an unashamed recognition of his need to force himself to focus on the Lord and His benefits.

As a Christian in this tumultuous, changing time in our nation, I challenge you to challenge yourself to bless the Lord. I challenge you to daily stake out the territory of your mind, your will, and your emotions for honoring God. I challenge you to do it without first consulting with your emotions or circumstances to get permission. Just do it!

Are you concerned about your benefits? I challenge you to join me daily this week as we search out every one of the benefits listed in the first five verses of Psalm 103, and I believe that if you do, you will gain confidence that the One who sees the end from the beginning will, indeed, care for you.

Bless the Lord!

Dorothy