Forget Not All His Benefits
Psalm 103:1-5 “Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits—who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
This verse has a lot to it. First it's talking about praise, which is similar to yesterday’s verse. This verse is not just saying praise the Lord, it is saying praise the Lord with your soul. Praise the Lord with your inmost being. Have you ever praised like this before? Have you ever been singing along with a song, or even just listening to a song and you felt that song with your inmost soul? I have a few songs on my playlist like that. Actually we sang one of these songs at my class last Monday night. It is called "Raise a Hallelujah” by Bethel Music. If you haven’t heard that song I recommend you look it up. It’s such a great song! At class that song got everyone up on their feet singing along at the top of their lungs. It was is so good!
After this verse it says, “And forget not all His benefits—who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” I think it might be good to look at each of these separately. The first thing it mentions is that God forgives all you sin. It doesn’t say some of your sins, it doesn’t say everyone else’s sins, but not yours, it says He forgives ALL your sins. Do you believe this is true? Do you believe that the Lord loves you so much He forgives your sins? Many of us will quickly say Jesus died on a cross for our sins. We know this and yet when you look at how we are living you wouldn’t be able to tell we know this. Some of us hold onto our sins and we wear them like a scarlet letter. We don’t let people close to us because if they really knew who we were or what we did they wouldn’t want to be our friend anymore.
We tell all those that will listen about how Jesus died for our sins and about how God loves them no matter what they have done. We tell them their behavior doesn’t make God love them any more or any less than He already does. We tell others that it is never too late to turn back to the Lord and repent. We tell them this and the whole time we are telling them this we are holding onto our own sins and we are holding onto the belief that God couldn’t possibly love us because of the things we have done. If you are good at telling others about God’s forgiveness and not great about accepting it into your life I want to encourage you to hear God’s word in this verse right now. “He forgives all you sins.” Yes, even that one you have been trying to hide from Him. Yes, even that one you know for sure He couldn’t possibly forgive. He forgives all of our sins. All we need to do is trust that and be brave enough to bring our sins to Him, confess them, and repent. He is so eager for each one of us to turn back to Him. He is waiting with open arms!
He heals all your diseases, is this something you believe? This one is sometimes harder for me. I mean, I know He can heal all diseases and at the same time, I know people who have died of diseases and so it is a harder one for me to understand. I know for sure He heals all diseases when we die and go to heaven. When we get to heaven there will be no disease. I am not sure why He doesn’t heal all diseases this side of heaven? I don’t understand why some people get to live and some people don’t. In my eyes, there is no rhyme or reason to it. Every time I try to understand, or I try to apply some sort of human logic to it, the Holy Spirit points me to Isaiah 55:18-19, “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.” We are not meant to understand everything this side of heaven.
Even though I know a lot of people that have died from diseases, I have also heard a lot of testimony of people who have been healed here no Earth and get to live the rest of their lives disease free. I watched the “Fearless” Documentary the other night with Tony. This documentary explores what it means to live our Catholic Faith in a fearless way. I know not everyone listening to this is Catholic, and I love that. I still think you should watch the documentary. It is such a powerful testimony to the power of stepping out in faith. There is video footage from healing services and it is incredible to see how many people were healed and how they were healed. There was a man who came to the service in a wheel chair, he hadn’t walked in 7 years. He was up and walking that night. Praise God, He is so good! God is healing people even today, even in this day and age and He is doing it though ordinary people like you and me.
The next part says, “Who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion.” This one may be another one that is hard to believe. God can redeem your life from the pit, is this something you can believe? This may be harder to believe if you are in a pit right now. When you are in a pit you don’t usually feel much love or compassion. You don’t usually feel much of anything. You certainly don’t think God will redeem what you are going through as all you can see is darkness around you. This is one where you might have to keep telling yourself it while you are in the pit. It might be one that you don’t necessarily believe, but something you hope for. If you are in a pit right now, picture God lifting you out of it, putting a crown on your head and filling you with love and compassion. This may be difficult if all you see is darkness. Try anyway. God will redeem your life from the pit. He says so right here in this verse. God has not abandoned you, nor will He ever abandon you. If this is what you are hearing it is a lie from the enemy. If this is what you are hearing on a daily basis, then write this part of the verse down and read it every time you get the thought that you are alone or that God has abandoned you. God will crown you with love and compassion, remember that!
The last thing the verse says is, "Who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” Another amazing thing about God is that He doesn’t just give us what we need to survive. He makes sure we have that and then He goes above and beyond that. He satisfies our desires with good things. Do you believe this? Is this something you have gotten to witness? Have you ever asked the Lord for something and then received something so much better than you asked for? Sometimes God likes to show off and I love it! The other day God miraculously fixed the water at my friend’s parents house. He could have arranged to have a plumber come, or someone to look at the well, but instead He decided to miraculously fix it. My friend was praying that she would have enough food at a celebration she was having and she ended up having way more food than she needed. Praise God, He is so good! I heard something on the Big Life podcast the other day and I have started saying it a lot. I really like it. When I notice something that God did, when I see something God created, or when God answers a prayer I say, “Thank you God I love it!”
The next time you notice something God did for you, or something He created for the whole world, like a beautiful sunset, say, “Thank you God, I love it!” and see if you feel any differently about it. I can’t say that without smiling and filling up with joy. That is a super short way to praise God and yet it gets the praise to HIm. This verse started out talking about praise and I just realized I am ending it talking about praise. I didn’t mean to do this and yet I am sure the Holy Spirit did because praising God is just that important. What can you praise God for today? How many times today can you say, “Thank you God, I love it!”
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask you to bless all those listening to this episode today. Lord, we thank you for all you do for us. We ask you to help us to believe those things listed above that we are struggling to believe. We ask you to help us come to an understanding about the things we don’t understand. If it is something we aren’t meant to understand help us to see that too Lord. We pray for those who are in a pit right now, we pray that you show them how much you love them and that you lift them out of that pit and put that crown of love and compassion on them. Lord, we pray for all those suffering with a disease right now, we pray you heal their disease. We pray for all those who need forgiveness. We pray that you open their hearts and help them accept your forgiveness. Lord we love you and we are so grateful you do so much for us. You truly are the Lord of Lords and the Kings of Kings. You are the father of forgiveness and we are so grateful. We ask all of this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’ holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. In case you didn’t hear yesterday, my book is finally out into the world! It is called Total Trust In God’s Safe Embrace! I hope you will take a look at it and share it with your friends. Click Here for book. Thank you for all your support! I look forward to bringing you another witness tomorrow. Remember, Jesus loves you and so do I! Have a blessed day.
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