Bless the Lord, O my soul!
Psalm 103
I want to leave you with some food for thought. John 3:16 says, “God so loved the world. . . .” Some still don’t understand: If God loves everyone in the world, shouldn’t everyone go to heaven? Jesus said that the world (in general terms) cannot receive the Spirit of truth because it neither sees nor knows Him (nor wants Him). It’s a sad truth that people don’t want God involved in their lives. Yet, amazingly, they still expect to go to heaven when they die! Yes, God’s loving-kindness is available to all who . . . do what?…. Keep His covenant and obey His commandments. But those actions are merely identifiers. No one deserves or earns heaven by doing those things, but those who love Him will do them. What may we glean from all of this? One thing is that God is greater and more powerful than the human mind can ever fathom. The more we truly understand this, the more readily we’ll surrender to His will and praise Him from our hearts.
Who else could offer us mercy as high as the heavens are above the earth? Who else could endure the suffering that you and I could not? Who else never gives you “everything you deserve?” When someone has sinned, people might say, “You made your bed; now lie in it.” Or, “I hope they get what’s coming to them!” But God said, “Look at pitiful humanity. If I don’t do something to save them, none of them will make it here, and they would have to suffer all that they deserve. I will endure for them what they never could.”
There is really one sin that is at the core of them all. It was the sin of Satan himself that caused his fall and caused a third of the angels to fall with him. It is the sin of pride, and man falls victim to it all the time, resulting in the inability to admit that God is greater than us and has every right to do as He pleases. Once you accept that, the rest is easy.
Have you done so? If not, you should. If you don’t, you’ll never bless the Lord, and He’ll never bless you—certainly not with heaven. “I thought that God loves everyone!” you say. He does. But the question is: Do you love Him? The answer isn’t just to say the word “yes,” but to live a life that says “yes” by keeping His covenant and doing His commandments, believing in the huge sacrifice that He paid to cover your sins—suffering and dying in your place—and then proving His infinite life and love by rising from the dead, showing Himself to many after His resurrection as proof that the grave couldn’t hold Him, and ascending into heaven before the eyes of many, promising that He will come again to take us to our home to be with Him in heaven forever!
How smart are you? In Matthew 7, Jesus said, “ ‘Whoever hears these sayings of Mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock. But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.’ And so it was, when Jesus had ended these sayings, that the people were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one having authority, and not as the scribes” (Matthew 7:24-28). Jesus taught as one who has authority because He does have it—over all creation! And knowing Him is the only way we’ll be able to endure the storms of life with our praise intact. And if you’re smart, you’ll praise Him, too! Lord, we thank You for your love and Your great salvation that cost You so much and yet is so easy for us to obtain. We praise You with our lips and our hearts and our minds as we go out into the world today, because You alone are worthy.
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