Bless the Lord, O My Soul
“Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all this is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul and forget not all His benefits: who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies” (Psalm 103: 1 – 4 NKJV).
I remember hearing a song when I was just beginning to follow Jesus that mentioned blessing God. I wondered how it was possible for me to bless God. Didn’t it work the other way around? Didn’t God bless me? Later I realized that I do bless God with my obedience, surrender, worship, and service. Not that He needs my blessing in any way, but by doing these things I affirm my relationship with Him and acknowledge that He is Lord and I am not. That blesses Him.
The other day I came across this quote by C.S. Lewis from his book ‘The Problem of Pain’. I included it in a longer quote in my last post:
“God Himself, as Son, from all eternity renders back to God as Father by filial obedience the being which the Father by paternal love eternally generates in the Son. This is the pattern which man was made to imitate . . . and wherever the will conferred by the Creator is thus perfectly offered back in delighted and delighting obedience by the creature, there, most undoubtedly, is Heaven, and there the Holy Ghost proceeds”.
This is how we bless God. We return or offer back to Him ‘the being’, the whole person and all of God’s blessings in our lives, which the Father generates in us. This was the pattern in the Garden of Eden between man and woman and God. This is the pattern in the Kingdom of God today, and where this pattern of relationship is present there is Heaven and the indwelling Holy Ghost. This will be the pattern of the restored Universe – God at the center, on His throne, and all of the Saints perpetually worshiping God, giving back all that we have been given by Him.
We return or offer back to God all that He gives us – all the blessings that He showers on us, that we too often take for granted – with joyful and delighted hearts. This is the heart of worship and this is how we bless God. And this attitude of the heart is only possible if we live in a continual posture of humility. These gifts and blessings from God exist in our lives to bless Him, bless others (and by doing that we bless Him), and to release the Kingdom of God into the kingdom of the world.
In Psalm 103 David writes that God ‘crowns us’ with lovingkindness (Hesed in Hebrew, a particularly difficult word to translate, can mean ‘lovingkindness’. It can also be translated as ‘loyal love’. It is not primarily a feeling. It is something you do for another person who has no claim on you. In the New Testament it comes close to the meaning of Agape love). God also crowns or blesses us with faithfulness, healing, peace, hope, power, life, freedom, provision, and much more. In fact, “all that is within me” comes from God. We bless Him when we return all of these back to God – especially our ‘loyal love’, faithfulness, peace, hope, and joy. We give everything that He has given us back to Him when we acknowledge Him as the source of these gifts or crowns, commit them to His service, and use them unselfishly to release His Kingdom into the world. But first, we must reach a place of surrender – it is too easy to see all of these gifts, especially wealth and possessions, as ours, to use as we choose for our own advantages.
It is interesting that David says that God ‘crowns’ us with lovingkindness. In the New Testament crowns symbolize gifts given to us by our Father. Scripture describes 5 crowns that are given to mankind: A crown of righteousness (2 Timothy 4: 8); an incorruptible crown (1 Corinthians 9: 25- 27); the crown of life (James 1: 12; Revelation 2: 10); the crown of glory (1 Peter 5: 2-4); and the crown of rejoicing (1 Thessalonians 2: 19). These crowns are not related to salvation; rather they are rewards for living as men and women in the Kingdom of God – they are Kingdom gifts. Paul mentions rewards for our ‘work’ in 1 Corinthians 3: 13, 14: “his work will be shown for what it is, because the Day will bring it to light. It will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test the quality of each man’s work. If what he has built survives, he will receive his reward.” One of these rewards is a crown or perhaps many crowns.
Like everything else, our purpose is to bless God with these crowns. We return them to God in our ultimate act of worship described in Revelation 4: 7-11:
“In the center, around the throne, were four living creatures, and they were covered with eyes in front and in back . . . Day and night they never stop saying: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was, and is, and is to come.” Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor, and thanks to Him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before Him who sits on the throne, and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say: “You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”(NIV).
Like the 24 elders, who are the celestial representatives of the redeemed (that is, us), we will also have an opportunity to lay the crowns that we received from God in this world at His feet, upon a floor that looks like a sea of glass, clear as crystal. In this way, we return back to God all that He has given us. We bless him. But there is another dimension to this gift giving, this God-blessing. Imagine the joy we will have when, in Heaven, the ultimate fulfillment of the Kingdom of God, we can give all that we have ‘acquired’ in the world back to God. What joy, what a blessing, what a delight! And this joy will last for eternity.
We don’t have to wait for that moment. We should be giving back to God, blessing God with the gifts He has bestowed upon us, each day. But, as I said above, this is only possible if we have “given up the right to ourselves” – denying ourselves, crucifying self, following Jesus, and becoming the servant of all. Apart from this attitude of our heart, we cannot bless God. We most likely will use the gifts for our own purposes. And here is a universal truth of Scripture – if we do not ‘give up the right to ourselves’, if we use these gifts for selfish gain, there is one and only one inevitable outcome – death! Spiritual, emotional, even physical death for our relationships and us. This is true for nations as well, as the Old Testament history of Israel and Judah illustrates. If a nation does not return the gifts to God that God has showered on that nation in the forms of worship and obedience, the inevitable outcome is the death and destruction of that nation.
Think of the Jordan River as a metaphor for the stream of blessing God pours into our lives. The life-giving water of the Jordan River has its headwaters in the snow-capped peak of Mt. Hermon. There, numerous tributaries catch the snow melt and coalesce as they flow to the south becoming the Jordan River. Along the riverbanks, lush stands of vegetation grow providing fruit in season. Ultimately, on its way to the sea, the river flows into the Sea of Galilee. Years ago, before so much water was taken for irrigation, the life-giving water (a blessing from God) flowing into the lake equaled the outflow. The lake teemed with all sorts of life. The ‘blessing’ that flowed into the lake was passed on, downstream, to bless other parts of Israel. The ‘blessing’ was not hoarded. The result was a fresh, healthy lake teeming with life – abundant life.
The water that leaves the Sea of Galilee flows further south until the river enters another body of water – the Dead Sea. And here the flow stops. Water enters the Sea but no water flows out. The blessing is not passed on. The Dead Sea is just that – dead. No life; only bitter water and black, fetid mud unfit for anything except maybe tourism. This is the inevitable consequence of a life that receives crowns of blessing, but ends up hoarding the blessings for its own purposes – even if those purposes are considered good by the world. Blessings that do not get passed on, but are held tightly. Crowns that do not get laid at the feet of God.
Blessings, or crowns, only seem real to us in this world. In reality, they are transitory. Their purpose, their real value is not in themselves. Their real value is in the life, the joy, the hope, and the peace they give when they are given away. This is the message of Christ – your life is not your own. You can try to make it your own – but if you do it has a strange way of slipping away, morphing into something monstrous, deadly, and evil.
In the end, life is a crown given to Kingdom men and women for one purpose: to bless God in the returning of that life back to the Creator, the giver of all life. Joining the 24 Elders, this is our ultimate act of worship. This is the song of Heaven – the song of rejoicing. This is your heart, the Temple of God, filled with the Spirit of Christ, which flows like living water bubbling and gurgling (do you hear the sound?) into us as we let it flow out, bringing abundant life to us and all whom we touch.
This is how we worship the God “who forgives our iniquities, heals our diseases, and redeems our lives from destruction” – the God who restores. Our Heavenly Father.
Hallelujah!
I pray for streams of Living Water to flow into and out of your heart today, blessing and glorifying God.
John