First off, I swear I didn’t know about the contents of Psalm 103 before writing that one article I had recently posted – that small exhortation I made before covering the final ‘letter’ of Psalm 119, to be precise.
Today is March 3, and I’ve probably done some writing here and there on Psalm 3 a couple times already… So imagine my surprise when I decided to do a little more writing today… and saw this, when I pulled up Psalm 103:
1 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name!
2 Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits,
Psalms 103:1-2
We’re on a roll here. Indeed, it was stirred up from within, and now we’re told from the outside in: Bless the Lord, o my soul… and, in fact, I call on all of my being, bless the holy name of the Lord!
Yes, again we say, bless the Lord, o my soul! Let us bless His name as we come to remember all of His benefits… For in this day and age, it is now through Christ that we can make the bold claims that follow:
3 who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases,
4 who redeems your life from the pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy,
5 who satisfies you with good so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. Psalms 103:3-5
Bless the Lord, o my soul! Bless the Lord, all that is within me! For through Christ becoming sin and dying in our place, our iniquity has been fully and completely forgiven!
Bless the Lord, o my soul! For by His stripes, we are healed of all of our diseases – primarily, the disease of sin that results in all other forms of disease, all leading to death.
Indeed, let us bless the Lord, for we are Rapha (râphâ’/râphâh, raw-faw’, raw-faw’): Through Christ, we are mended (by stitching), we are cured; Christ is our Healer and Physician who has repaired us thoroughly, Christ has made us whole!
I’ve had to walk out a little there, because I faced some immediate resistance to that last statement – if we’re healed, if our diseases are healed, then why did my Dad pass away from cancer? Why do we age?
The question then stretched out to even more questions: If we read, later on in verse 5, that we are satisfied with good, then why do we lack? Why do we suffer poverty?
Finally, if we’re saved, then why do we still sin? Is this a question we ought to be asking? Is it in line with the train of thought of the questions asked prior?
As I was walking, I thought to myself, rather, I came to the conclusion: That we are forgiven, we are healed, we are redeemed, saved and satisfied – beyond our comprehension. That is, that the salvation, the provision, the restoration that we love to preach about is real, even if all our senses report ‘threats’ to our secure standing with God, even if we are not satisfied with our financial situation, and even if we are literally feeling sickness or weakness.
Truth is infinitely superior to facts. Our life is established as an everlasting truth, no matter what our senses believe arising from what we think are facts, or what all in this reality calls facts.
Our experiences are not what defines our forgiveness, our healing, our redemption, our being crowned with steadfast love and mercy; Our experiences are not the primary source of whether we are satisfied or not, or whether our youth is renewed or not. The Word proclaims all of this as Truth – and it may not be seen or sensed in this world, but through the grace of God, the finished work of Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit we know it as true and absolute in reality beyond this finite existence.
To all this, I continue to say, bless the Lord, o my soul – and, in fact, it opens my eyes further to what it means when we say, ‘all that is within me’: that is to say, all my being: All of me, beyond my own senses. All of me, created, established and redeemed by the Holy One, the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords: Bless the Lord, o my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name.
As I walked, I thought – this isn’t something that should sound mystical! It shouldn’t be something that’s ‘deep’; Rather, just as it is beyond our comprehension and senses, I believe it MUST reach us and ‘fit’ with our being, in ways beyond our capabilities of understanding!
Our eternal and infinite Creator – and, by extension, our Savior, our Holy Spirit; by extension, His Word, His understanding, and now His forgiveness, His healing, His redemption, His crowning, His satisfaction, His youth – all of Him is beyond our comprehension, and therefore more to be trusted than to be analyzed.
Like I said yesterday – It’s not that we understand to believe. We believe first, and then the understanding comes later.
We believe, and continue to believe – living and truly living, believing in our new life, TRUE LIFE in Christ as He is in us.
We continue to believe, even in the presence of seemingly overwhelming temptation and struggles with sin that have gone on for far too long. We continue to believe, even when we are sick or otherwise damaged, in our physical bodies, or in our minds.
We continue to believe, even when we see ourselves down in the pits of despair, or where love and mercy are nowhere to be sensed.
We continue to believe, in lack of any ‘good’, or as we observe our physical bodies changing…
By the power of the Holy Spirit, who convicts us of our righteousness, we are able to believe through it all, knowing that the salvation we have in Christ is final and forever, complete and absolute.
And I dare say this: We believe in Christ, and therefore our salvation is not defined by our experiences in this finite world… and, also, it’s actually our final and forever, complete and absolute salvation that defines our experiences in this world.
We say again:
Bless the Lord, o my soul! Bless the Lord, all that is within me! For through Christ becoming sin and dying in our place, our iniquity has been fully and completely forgiven!
Bless the Lord, o my soul! For by His stripes, we are healed of all of our diseases – primarily, the disease of sin that results in all other forms of disease, all leading to death.
Indeed, let us bless the Lord, for we are Rapha (râphâ’/râphâh, raw-faw’, raw-faw’): Through Christ, we are mended (by stitching), we are cured; Christ is our Healer and Physician who has repaired us thoroughly, Christ has made us whole!
I believe this is the faith we have established in us through the finished work of Christ, and by the hearing of His Word: It is believing beyond our comprehension.
I see now why we’re setup for persecution: I see how this could be utterly ridiculous, or, honestly, crazy.
But all the same, it just… fits. It feels right.
‘Whether He is a sinner or not, I do not know… but one thing I DO know – I once was blind, but now I see.’
It gives us more insight on the latter portion of the Psalm:
15 As for man, his days are like grass; he flourishes like a flower of the field;
16 for the wind passes over it, and it is gone, and its place knows it no more.
17 But the steadfast love of the LORD is from everlasting to everlasting on those who fear him, and his righteousness to children’s children,
18 to those who keep his covenant and remember to do his commandments.
We’re being given a reminder of our mortality (in fact, the word for ‘man’ in verse 15 translates to ‘mortal’); that is, of our bodies being as finite as this finite world… yet we – we who have believed and feared Him, we who have believed in the One who has established a New Covenant with us, with a new commandment given to us (Love as we are loved), we who were once separated and are now children of the Most High – we are loved with a steadfast love by a steadfast God, but, for reasons of believing beyond reason, we – our entire beings, beyond our own physical bodies – are infinitely, eternally, absolutely loved by an absolute God.
Indeed, beyond our comprehension, beyond the finite facts and all the world claims is truth, beyond our senses: 19 The LORD has established his throne in the heavens, and his kingdom rules over all.Psalms 103:15-19
And so we say, again:
Bless the Lord, o my soul! Bless the Lord, all that is within me!
20 Bless the LORD, O you his angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word!
21 Bless the LORD, all his hosts, his ministers, who do his will!
22 Bless the LORD, all his works, in all places of his dominion.
Bless the LORD, O my soul!
Psalms 103:20-22
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