“Praise the Lord, O my soul, and don’t forget all His benefits!” Psalm 103:2

Another great psalm that I have fixed in my memory SO THAT I have a better chance of not “forgetting all His benefits!” I actually found 20 of them in this song! Want to know what they are? Sorry, you’re going to anyway! J

1. He forgives ALL my sins
2. He heals ALL my diseases
3. He redeems my life from the pit
4. He crowns me with love and compassion
5. He satisfies my desires with good things
6. He renews my youth like the eagle’s
7. He works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed
8. He is compassionate
9. Gracious
10. Slow to anger
11. Abounding in love
12. He will not always accuse
13. He will not harbor His anger forever
14. He does not treat me as my sins deserve
15. He does not repay me according to my iniquities
16. As high as the heavens are above the earth so great is His love for me when I respect Him (ever thought about how high that is?)
17. As far as the east is from the west so far HAS He removed my transgressions from me (ever thought about how far east is from west? Why didn’t he say as far as the north is from the south?)
18. As a father has compassion on his children so the Lord has compassion on me when I respect Him
19. He knows how I am formed, He remembers that I am just dust (and treats me that tenderly)
20. From everlasting to everlasting (and that’s a pretty long time!) His love is with me when I respect Him

That’s quite a list—and three times the “prerequisite” of sorts is that I “respect Him.” And at the end, faithful to my belief in the clarity of God’s word for everything important, David finally defines what he means by “respecting God”:

1. Keeping HIS covenant
2. Obeying HIS precepts

And it begins and ends with, “Praise the Lord O my soul.” It seems that whenever I start to run dry on reasons to praise God, or the ones I rely on start to get stagnant I return to Psalm 103 and remind myself of all the amazing things God wants to do for me when I focus on obeying Him and keeping His covenant alive in my heart.

Just a little sidelight to think about over break—I am becoming more and more convinced that the solution to retaining a vibrant and living Christianity has a lot to do with having and using a regular outlet to my experience with God. If I consume and retain I will stagnate. If I consume and deliver to someone else, in whatever way I find available to me then I have a new hunger, consume more, give back more, and come back for more. The key I believe to retaining and growing in my Christian experience is giving it away, doing something with it, acting on what I have found—NOT keeping it within or preserving it for a more needy time!
Experience + output = living Christianity
Experience – output = stagnant and ultimately death to Christianity
So where are we in these spiritual equations?!

Have a great day finding reasons to praise AND THEN praising by my output to Him,
Pastor Rich