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Psalm 103:1 "Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name." The one hundred and
third Psalm is a blessed catalog of the mercies of God to His people.
He “healeth all thy diseases”
and “redeemeth thy life from
destruction.” What wondrous
mercy, that “He hath not dealt with us
after our sins; nor rewarded us according to our iniquities” (Psa.
103:10)! The Psalmist has ascended
to the heights of praise in extolling the mercy of God that is “so
great … toward them that fear Him.”
However, before he entered into the inner court of worship, David did
some real heart work in order to stir himself up to bless God.
That is what we have in our text, David stirring himself up and preparing
his heart to worship God. Let us
turn our thoughts to the beginning of this magnificent Psalm and learn from
David’s example. In the first place,
David rouses his soul, saying, “Bless
the LORD, O my soul.” It
seems strange to hear one speaking of blessing God.
We surely understand God blessing man but the converse is rarely heard.
What does it mean to bless the Lord?
The Hebrew word barak is here
translated ‘bless.’ The word
means literally to kneel. When God
is the subject, it means to kneel to bless God as an act of adoration.
To bless God is to worship Him and the Psalmist is preparing himself for
that very purpose. The very fact that
David is endeavoring so to stir himself up to this blessed occupation teaches us
that man is not naturally in the proper frame of mind and disposition of heart
to worship God. Man cannot just
enter casually and carelessly upon this business.
It takes some real work to prepare oneself for worship.
If this were more widely known and practiced, perhaps our worship
services would not be so dull and drowsy. Secondly, let us take
notice of some of the particulars of the Psalmist’s work.
David does not wish to worship God perfunctorily.
He seeks to rouse his very soul. “Bless
the LORD, O my soul,” yea, and more than that, he says, “And
all that is within me, bless His Holy Name.”
One as noble and august as God surely deserves the energies of the inmost
soul. David is not content until he
has marshaled all his faculties to concentrate on this one purpose. It will not do for
David to draw nigh merely with his lips. He
seeks to worship God with all of his being.
That was the problem with many in Christ’s day.
Jesus said of them, “This
people draweth nigh unto me with their mouth, and honoureth me with their lips;
but their heart is far from me” (Matt. 15:8).
Their religion appeared pious and their worship serious, but the Lord
reproved them as token worshippers and not true worshippers.
They were much like The problem with token
worshippers is that they are not all in the business of worshipping God.
Their hearts are divided, half with God and half with self, a part in the
church and a part in the world. They
spend more time fixing their hair than fixing their heart in preparation to meet
God. They spend more time putting
on their clothes than putting off the old man.
Though I must confess, some need to spend more time putting their clothes
on, for it seems that they are in such a hurry to get to church that they
neglect to put on the rest of their clothes and come scantily clad.
Others take great delight in putting on a new dress or new suit, or some
other piece of the latest trendy garb, to come to church and be fashionable,
when it were better that they would come to church to meet God and not Sis.
Vanity-Fair who will complement them on their new clothes. The Lord’s house is
the place where His “honour dwelleth”
(Psa. 26:8). The Lord is in the
very midst of the assembly (Matt. Finally, David said, “Bless
the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless His Holy Name.”
He knew that he needed to prepare himself for such a great work as
praising God. He did not take it
lightly. Christian, do you take
lightly the worship of God? We need
our hearts prepared (Job |