Bless the <\/i>Lord<\/i>, O my soul,<\/i> and all that is within me, bless his holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle\u2019s.<\/i>\u00a0 Psalm 103:1-5 English Standard Bible<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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<\/i> He has promised to be with you always, even to the end of the age (see 2 Corinthians 5:17, Matthew 28:20).<\/p>\n
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\u2019ve known the Lord. You must continually stir yourself up by way of reminder concerning this treasure trove of benefits (see 2 Peter 1:13).<\/p>\n
David wrote that the Lord \u201csatisfies you with good<\/i> so that your youth is renewed like the eagle\u2019s.<\/i>\u201d \u00a0NASB says He satisfies your years<\/strong> with good things<\/i>; NIV says He satisfies your desires<\/strong> with good things<\/i>; and KJV states that He satisfieth thy mouth<\/strong> with good things<\/i>. The Hebrew word translated years, desires, and mouth is `adiy,<\/em> <\/em>and actually means \u201cornament\u201d. It can also represent the bit in a horse\u2019s mouth.<\/p>\n No matter which meaning you prefer, the bottom line is that one benefit of the Lord is to satisfy you with good, whether in\u00a0 years, desires, or your mouth! Perhaps, in line with the \u201cbit in a horse\u2019s mouth\u201d 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\u2019s bit—a self-controlled mouth—to direct the course of your life toward fruitfulness and good (see James 3:3).<\/p>\n Who satisfies you with good<\/i> so that your youth is renewed like the eagle\u2019s.<\/i><\/p>\n God satisfies you with good so that<\/i> your youth is renewed like the eagle. This is an amazing statement. It is your relationship with God<\/em> which renews your youth, not<\/em> Est\u00e9e Lauder, workouts, or a scalpel. Sarah, the wife of Abraham, and Rebekah, Isaac\u2019s 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, \u201cThey will still yield fruit in old age; they shall be full of sap and very green.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n 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).<\/p>\n The Apostle Paul also wrote of renewal. He said, \u201cTherefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day\u201d (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 <\/i>as he blessed the Lord, and he was effective in his reign only <\/i>as he kept his eyes fixed on the benefits of his God.<\/p>\n Isaiah 40:31 testifies that the individual who waits on the Lord \u201cwill gain new strength;<\/i> they will mount up with wings like eagles, they will run and not get tired, they will walk and not become weary.<\/i>\u201d 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.<\/p>\n Bless the Lord!<\/p>\n Dorothy<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" 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 satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle\u2019s.\u00a0 Psalm 103:1-5 English Standard Bible As you give yourself to the discipline of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1935","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-psalm-103"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1935"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1941,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1935\/revisions\/1941"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1935"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1935"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.firstofallpray.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1935"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}