Bless the Lord, O my
soul, and forget not all His benefits.
(Psalm 103:2)
One of the best ways to begin or end
a day is by a conscious remembering of all God’s benefits. Those who know the
Lord are prone to suffering in this world so it can become very easy for us to
complain. The absence of some of the
blessings we see others enjoying can make us forgetful of what blessings God
has poured out on us. So the Psalmist
says, "forget not all His benefits."
Then he goes on to list some of God’s great blessings to us who fear
Him:
1.) God forgives of all our
iniquities. One could easily bear all
the suffering of a thousand lives for that one blessing alone! Imagine in your mind the enormous mass of
your sin in all its great wickedness.
See God the judge take His seat to pass judgment on you. Then hear Him say, “All is forgiven; this
one’s sins and iniquities I will never recall again.” Already our resentment over some worldling’s
blessings is falling away, is it not!
But, this is just the beginning - there is more!
2.) God heals all our diseases. Even
in this life we experience God’s healing grace, but someday, we shall be
altogether delivered from sickness and death.
One experienced saint was about to undergo heart surgery. When his pastor came to visit him, he said,
"I shall soon be better or all the way well." As it turns out, that dear brother was made
all the way well, and is now with the Lord.
His surgeon might have made him better than he was, but God chose to
make him all the way well. For some
years, God will let doctors make us better; but someday, God will make us all
the way well.
3.) God redeems our souls from
destruction. You and I know very little
of what God’s wrath is like. In fact, I
suppose only those in hell know what God’s wrath is. There is only one other who knows, and that
is the Lord Jesus Christ, who bore God’s wrath for God’s people. Because Christ was forsaken and experienced
the wrath of God, all of us who are in Him shall never experience it.
4.)
God crowns us with His loving-kindness and mercy. The word translated “crowned” also means
“encircle” or “surround.” The crown of
glory on the believer is God’s loving-kindness and mercy; and not only does it
crown our heads, it encircles and surrounds us so that we are protected from
all eternal harm.
5.) God gives His people full
satisfaction. The world rushes after its
glories, and no matter how much it receives, it is never satisfied. But every believer shall be satisfied with
Christ, and shall someday be satisfied IN Christ. When the worlding dies, he loses all of His
blessings. When the believer dies, He
receives the full measure of His heart’s deepest longings.
6.) God does not deal with us according
to our sins. Is that not a relief! If God were to deal with you in justice,
where would you be?
7.) God pities us. His eye toward us is not full of the wrath of
a judge, but the pity, understanding, and compassion of a father.
With such blessings, how can we
complain? With such abundance of goods,
how can we ever consider ourselves anything less than the most blessed of all
people in the world? Bless the Lord, O
my soul, and forget not all His benefits.
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