BLESS The Lord

“Bless the LORD, O my soul, And all that is within me, bless His holy name.” (Psalms‬ ‭103:1-2, 20-22‬ ‭NASB‬‬ )

BLESSed: Happy, fortunate, to be envied, that’s the way the Amplified Bible (Classic version) defines “blessed”. When scripture calls us to “bless the Lord”, it is telling us to be one in whom He finds happiness, joy, rejoicing. To be one that takes part in His sense of being fortunate. To be a cause for His being envied. Here, in these verses that tell us to bless The Lord, we find instruction on ways we do that.

First, in verse one above, we see that BLESSing God requires all our soul. By way of reminder from previous posts of late, our soul includes our mind – the way we think, the thoughts we hold to; our will – the choices we make, our stubborn resolve; and our emotions – the full gamut of them. All that we are, leaning into God with full commitment to Him, desiring to bless our Holy Father.

“Bless the LORD, O my soul, And forget none of His benefits” (vs. 2).

We bless our God when all that we are remembers all His benefits, being rightly influenced by all we know and trust of Him. This blessing from our soul remembers all He has done for us as expressed throughout scripture; it believes and trusts all He does to and through us in our here and now lives as promised to those who serve Him; and it endures to the finish out of faith in His promises for our future / eternity.

“Bless the LORD, you His angels, Mighty in strength, who perform His word, Obeying the voice of His word!” (Vs. 20)

We bless the Lord when we believe His Word, receive His Word, and act upon it in wholehearted agreement with God.

“Bless the LORD, all you His hosts, You who serve Him, doing His will” (Vs. 21).

We bless the Lord when, out of wholehearted love for Him, we choose the life of a bondservant, constantly ready, willing, and able to do His will, out of wholehearted trust in Him, who equips and makes us able. We do His will despite personal hardship, sacrifice, or loss. We give all for Him, who gave all for us.

“Bless the LORD, all you works of His, In all places of His dominion; Bless the LORD, O my soul!”

We bless the Lord as we recognize ourselves as a work of His hand, being wholly “confident of this very thing, that He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians‬ ‭1:6‬ ‭NASB‬‬). He is blessed when we remember that we are the works of His hands and we surrender to His work in and through us through all places, seasons, times, and epochs.

We are a work in progress, Beloved, and He’s not finished with us yet. So set yourself on the eternal and keep set, knowing God’s perfecting work draws you closer to completion day by day. We do this realizing that His work in and through us reveals Him to others, making us a light to the path of those seeking to find and know Him.

“All things are for your sakes, so that the grace which is spreading to more and more people may cause the giving of thanks to abound to the glory of God. Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians‬ ‭4:15-18‬ ‭NASB‬‬)