A few days ago, I felt unmotivated to read my Bible. The circumstances of life wore on me and I felt emotionally drained. While, praise God, these types of days have become fewer over the years, I still fight my flesh and there are days where my heart isn’t in sync with my head. I’ve learned to not let my feelings drive my actions and so I opened my Bible up anyways and worked my way through a Psalm. Immediately, my eyes were taken off myself and my feelings, and directed to reflect the God worthy of worship.
If there is any Psalm that keeps us our eyes fixed upward, rather than inward, it’s Psalm 103. David is the author of this Psalm. Its contents are that of blessing and exaltation to our great God. From beginning to the end of this Psalm, David calls for personal praise, corporate praise, and Creation’s praise. He takes the time to reflect on who God is as well as remember what God has done.
The first words that David opens Psalm 103 with are:
Bless the LORD, O my soul,
and all that is within me,
bless his holy name! (v. 1)
David offers personal praise.
These are not half-hearted words. No, they are exaltations expressing his total devotion to the Lord. He tells his soul and every fiber of his being to bless the Lord. These words are rich in gratitude, and in verse 2, he gives us motivation for this type of worship: “forget not His benefits.” He goes on to list 5 “benefits” for this overwhelming praise. God gives:
- Forgiveness of sin (v. 3)
- Healing from Sickness* (v. 3)
- Deliverance from death (v. 4)
- Insurmountable love and mercy (v. 4)
- Satisfaction/Contentment in God (v. 5)
And these are just the immediate benefits he lists. If I were to boil down how God is described throughout this Psalm, He is: Holy, a Giver of Benefits, a Forgiver of iniquities, Healer, Redeemer, Full of steadfast love, Merciful, All-satisfying, Righteous, Just, Gracious, Slow to Anger, Compassionate, Creator, All-knowing, and King! It may be tempting to skim over this list but the reality of Who God is completely changes our outlook as we go about our day.
Let’s take a look at how God revealed Himself to Moses:
But David’s praise doesn’t end here. He recalls how God revealed Himself to Moses. For those who need a refresher, let’s examine Moses’ request in Exodus 33:13: “Now therefore, if I have found favor in your sight, please show me now your ways, that I may know you in order to find favor in your sight . . .” and God responded in Exodus 34:6-7:
The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.”
God chose to reveal Himself to Moses by testifying about His own character. He’s gracious, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. This was spoken to a man who just led God’s chosen people out of enslavement in Egypt. These are characteristics He and His people would need to cling to as they faced the days ahead.
David continues the Psalm repeating the very revelation of God as recalled in Exodus, “The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love” (103:8).
In verse 14, David gets really humble:
For he knows our frame;
He remembers that we are dust.
As for man, his days are like grass;
He flourishes like a flower of the field;
For the wind passes over it, and it is gone,
And its place knows it no more.
A few years ago, we lived in an old Pennsylvania farmhouse. We purchased it in the Winter and had no idea until Spring that there were dozens of Peony bushes on the property. Every year I looked forward to those beautiful blooms. For a few weeks I had fresh-cut flowers to give friends and to display in my home. But during our last year in the house, we experienced a bad rain. And all the flowers that bloomed were destroyed. They were there one day and gone the next. This is our life. It’s like the grass or the flowers of the field, here today and gone tomorrow. This is what David means but he sets it up perfectly to give us a better idea of God’s steadfast love. Unlike our fading-flower-lifespan:
But the steadfast love the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him,
And his righteousness to children’s children,
To those who keep his covenant
and remember to do his commandments. (17-19, emphasis mine)
David understood that this steadfast love extended to those who feared God, kept his covenant, and remembered his commandments. Keep in mind that David wrote this under the Old Covenant. He didn’t have forgiveness of sin through Jesus like we do. He lived under the sacrificial system where forgiveness was given only after a sacrifice had been offered. He lived under the law, and still, he rejoiced in the fact that God was merciful to those who feared Him and didn’t deal with their iniquities or repay according to their sins (v. 10). He knew he deserved the wrath of God and yet received steadfast love.
And what about us? 2 Corinthians 3:10 (NIV) says, “For what was glorious has no glory now in comparison with the surpassing glory.” The former glory was the Old Covenant but the surpassing glory is Jesus and the New Covenant. Because of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection we who confess our sins and commit our lives to the Lord are also forgiven and receivers of this steadfast love. How much more should our praise overflow from our lips now that we live under the New Covenant?
There are going to be days where the reality of our salvation has us overflowing with joy, and there are going to be other days where we may be forgetful of the good gifts we’ve been given. But like David we can also “forget not His benefits.” As we reflect on who God is, remember what He has done, see ourselves rightly in comparison to Him, then we can say with David, “Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!”
Dianne Jago is a military wife and mother of three residing in Pensacola, Florida. She is the author of the book, “A Holy Pursuit: How the Gospel Frees Us to Follow and Lay Down Our Dreams” (https://amzn.to/2Tl2JXx) and the founder of Deeply Rooted Magazine (https://deeplyrootedmag.com).
*Rather than a promise for all healing, this is written in light of Deut. 32:39.