You and I have a natural predisposition toward lethargy, boredom, indifference, apathy, sluggishness, laziness, lifelessness, dullness, and inertia when it comes to our worship of God. We tend toward coldness in our affections, aided by a perpetual temptation to be small-minded, self-centered, and passive as we live out the Christian life. As a result, we become mechanical and distant in our religious exercises, gradually accepting spiritual gloominess as a tolerable norm.
But there is a heart-stirring, affection-warming, soul-rejuvenating antidote to such a tendency. And we find this antidote in Psalm 103.
This psalm opens with a remarkable refrain: “Bless the Lord, O my soul!” And before going any further, we must pause and note the significance of these words.
Worship is rarely a spontaneous activity. Naturally lethargic, lazy, and inert people do not often burst into praise unprovoked. It usually must be aroused. And what we find in Psalm 103 is that one of the most important means of arousing worship is simply to preach to yourself. Indeed, this is precisely what we find in the first verse. The psalmist, acutely aware of his own tendency toward lethargy, is issuing an exhortation to his own soul! He is telling himself, “Wake up, you cold and lazy soul, and worship your God!”
But the exhortation doesn’t stop there. Not only is the psalmist preaching to himself, but he is preaching to himself a very clear and definite message. He says to himself in the second verse: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.” It is not enough merely to tell his soul to worship. He must go a step further and give his soul a reason to worship. And in this case, the reason for his soul to bless the Lord is found in the contemplation of his benefits.
Naturally, our next question then would be something like this: What are the benefits of God? And right on cue, the psalmist begins to expound them.
He begins with a rapid overview of the personal benefits of God (vv. 3-5): he forgives, he heals, he redeems, he crowns, he satisfies, and he renews. But then the psalmist goes on to offer a more sustained meditation, highlighting no less than six benefits in somewhat greater detail. This portion of the psalm takes the aforementioned personal benefits of God and considers them in light of God’s interaction with his people as a whole.
First, there is the benefit of righteousness and justice (vv. 6-7). These were experienced in a special way by Moses during the exodus, but they can be seen by God’s people in any era of salvation history. Since being a part of God’s people often entails suffering and oppression, it is a great benefit that our God is committed to righteousness and justice.
Second, there is the benefit of being slow to anger (vv. 8-9). This patient disposition is so crucial to God’s character, that he in fact revealed this part of himself at Sinai (Ex. 34:6). While many see God as a malevolent bully, the people of God have experienced first-hand that he is not quick to chide.
Third, there is the benefit of forgiveness (vv. 10-12). For a people heavy-laden with sins, iniquities, and transgressions, it is an unspeakable joy to consider that God does not deal with us according to our sins, nor does he repay us according to our iniquities, but instead he removes our transgressions from us as far as the east is from the west. Such is the wonderful forgiveness of God!
Fourth, there is the benefit of compassion (vv. 13-14). Being the tender father that he is, God remembers our weakness and treats us with appropriate gentleness. This is a magnificent thought, that the Creator of the universe would exercise compassion in dealing with his creatures.
Fifth, there is the benefit of everlasting love (vv. 15-18). In contrast to the brevity of human life, God’s steadfast love extends from everlasting to everlasting, enduring throughout generations. He is faithful to his covenant, and his people can rest confident that his love will never depart from those upon whom he has set it.
Sixth, there is the benefit of universal kingship (v. 19). We need not fear that we belong to a kingdom in jeopardy. God’s throne is secure, and everything is subject to his authority. Nothing can ever overthrow him or steal his people from him.
These benefits culminate in the final refrain, wherein the psalmist calls upon God’s angels, his hosts, and his works to all rise up and bless the Lord. And just as the psalm begins, so it ends: “Bless the Lord, O my soul!”
The lesson in all of this is really quite simple. If we are cold in our affections toward God, it must be because we are forgetful of his benefits. His love and compassion and forgiveness and justice have all grown old to us, and as a result our worship has grown stale.
This means that it’s time to preach. It’s time to sit down with ourselves and plead with our souls to wake up and bless God. We must overwhelm ourselves with a relentless inundation of God’s benefits, reminding our forgetful hearts of the manifold reasons to praise. We must put to flight our self-absorbed tendency toward spiritual lethargy by the power of a God-entranced vision of divine benefits. In the end, we’ll find that we simply cannot behold God as revealed in the gospel without our hearts being melted and our affections warmed. And when we cry out, “Bless the Lord, O my soul!” we’ll soon find that our souls can’t help but obey.
