I want to begin by sharing with you one of my favourite psalms is Psalm 103: Bless Adonai, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy Name. 2 Bless Adonai, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: 3 He forgives all your iniquity. He heals all your diseases. 4 He redeems your life from the Pit. He crowns you with lovingkindness and compassions. 5 He satisfies your years with good things, so that your youth is renewed like an eagle.
In Proverbs 10:22 we read that, “The blessing of the Lord is what makes someone rich, (not the size of our pay cheque, or car, or worldly possessions) and He doesn’t add sorrow to it.”
That means that no matter what circumstances we may face we can rejoice in the blessings of the Lord, but we must never forget all His benefits! (Psalm 103) It’s a wonderful thing to be blessed by the Lord, and it is important to acknowledge
them and never take them for granted even when we face great challenges, and here the Psalmist learnt an important secret when he wrote: “I will bless the Lord…” And whilst the Lord desires to bless every one of His children, and delights to pour
them out without reservation, because He is a generous God whose blessings make us rich (body soul and spirit) we must never forget that the greatest privilege we can ever have is to bless Him!
And so we read the words of David the Psalmist here in the opening verses of Psalm 103: “Bless the Lord O my soul and all that is within me, bless His holy name:
And I want to briefly reflect upon what exactly it means to bless the Lord, and for this we need to examine the ancient Hebrew word for ‘bless’ which literally means, ‘to kneel.’ So when we bless Him we are in fact bringing Him a gift on bended knees in humility without concealing anything, but simply surrendering our lives unconditionally to Him.
There is no greater gift we can offer Him which will be the measure by which the sum total of our lives will be considered. This is what it means to bless the Lord! Who is the greatest in the Kingdom of God? It is not by the standards of the world we are judged. It is the one who comes to his people on bended knee in the footsteps of the Master.
Jesus said: “He who wishes to be the greatest amongst you should be the servant of all” and He demonstrated this throughout His earthly ministry even near the end when He went on bended knee and washed their feet at His last Passover.
So, God is greatly blessed when we come to Him on bended knee and offer Him the totality of our lives as expressed in Romans 12:1-2. The very most we can ever give Him is the least He deserves – is this not our starting point? First love is the well-spring that nourishes our walk with the Lord without which we simply wither and die.
Take what God has blessed you with today with both hands and release it as a sweet smelling scent that He will use to change and transform lives so that they too may experience and receive the full fragrance of His love. Here is my prayer for you today as reflected in Scripture:
“It is for this reason that I bow my knees (bring blessings) before the Father, after whom all families in heaven above and on earth below receive their names, and pray:
Father, out of Your honourable and glorious riches, strengthen Your people. Fill their souls with the power of Your Spirit so that through faith the Jesus will reside in their hearts. May love be the rich soil where their lives take root. May it be the bedrock where their lives are founded so that together with all of Your people they will have the power to understand that the love of God is infinitely long, wide, high, and deep, surpassing everything anyone previously experienced. May Your fullness flood through their entire beings.
Now unto Him who can do so many awe-inspiring things, immeasurable things, things greater than we ever could ask or imagine through the power at work in us, to Him be all glory in the church and in Jesus the Anointed from this generation to the next, forever and ever. Amen.” (Ephesians 3: 15-21)
