Have You Blessed The Lord Lately….
Psalms 103
1Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all
that is within me, bless his holy name. 5Who satisfieth thy
mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
A few years ago the Ford Motor
company used as its advertising campaign, “Have you driven a Ford lately.” At that time, I had recently purchased a
brand new Ford Explorer, and I truly was enjoying it. As a matter of fact, I liked mine so much I began to tell my dad
about it. Soon after that, he purchased
one. For the next few months, I became
a “moving ad” for Ford Explorers.
People whom I had never met would come up to me and say, “How do you
like your truck?” And I would tell them
without hesitation, “I like it a lot.
Are you thinking about getting one?
If so, you should.”
Whether good or bad, great or
terrible, one of the biggest influences on the decision-making process is “word
of mouth.” Whenever we have a pleasant experience in a restaurant, we tell
people. If we have a bad vacation, we
tell people. If we get mistreated, we
tell people. If we find a great sale,
we tell people. If we really meditate
on how much we tell people and what we tell them, we may find out that we all
are virtually living ad campaigns.
Our text starts by saying, “Bless
the LORD, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless his holy name.” This instance of the word “bless” comes from
the Hebrew word B~rakh which means to praise.
Our praise should be as natural as breathing. Every fiber of our being should desire to praise the Lord because
of who He is, because of His mercy, grace, kindness, and love for us. We shouldn’t need a “breakthrough” to praise
the Lord, for even in the midst of darkness, the 5th verse says He
constantly satisfies our mouths with good things.
Oooh child of the Most High
God. If you could really get your
“praise groove on” in the midst of a trial and begin to bless the Lord, you’ll
realize that you’re only in that situation to get blessed, to come out on top,
to be a winner and not a loser, to be the head and not the tail, to be above
only and never beneath. Once we bless
the Lord by professing how good He is, was, and will be to us, nothing but GOOD
THINGS will come out of our mouths. Have
you ever heard the saying, “It was soooo good I had to tell somebody?” Well, that’s the type of good things I see
the Lord satisfying our mouths with.
That type of good thing He gave the leper in Mark 1:40 – 45. As soon as the Lord healed him, He told the
leper, “See that you don’t tell this to anyone” (44th). But that good thing satisfied the leper’s
mouth so much, he had to tell everybody about what the Lord had done.
5Who
satisfieth thy mouth with good things;
If the enemy can keep us out of
praise, he can keep us from walking in our victory before we get our
victory. If he can get you to lie to
yourself long enough and to believe you are defeated, then you’ll walk in a
defeated manner, you’ll talk in a defeated manner, and you’ll even carry
yourself in a defeated manner. Too
often, the enemy gets us to kill our own happiness by having us exit praise and
enter pity. No one really wants to hear
someone have a pity party. The longer
it’s drawn out, the more it drains everyone who hears it. Yet, praise does just the opposite; it
uplifts you “5bso that thy youth is renewed like the
eagle’s.” It encourages the hearer to
seek out that which was praised. It
inspires the listener to find out how good that thing really is, even if the
listener is also the speaker. Let me
say that again, even if the listener is also the speaker.
There’s absolutely, positively
nothing wrong with you encouraging yourself, and there is no better way to do
it than by blessing the Lord. He has
already solved every problem we will ever face. He’s already been around every corner we will travel and has even
made provision while He was there. He’s
delicately woven our parents, grandparents, and great grandparents together to
get us here, and has ensured that we will win in the end. He has created a plan to defeat every enemy
we’ll ever know and even the ones you will never see. Now after being reminded of these things, all that we have left
to say is …. “Have you blessed the Lord lately?”
