Psalm 103:1-5 “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits—who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the Pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good as long as you live so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” Today's episode looks at a song written by Matt Redman and Jonas Myrin that reminds us to praise the Lord in all things. Music: "Adding the Sun" Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 4.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Bless The Lord, O My Soul
Psalm 103:1-5 “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and do not forget all his benefits—who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the Pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good as long as you live so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.”
Yesterday I couldn’t get a song out of my head. It is such a good song. I wanted to share that song with you this morning. The song is called “10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord).” It was written by Matt Redman and Jonas Myrin and is based upon Psalms 103:1-5. It explores how we can never run out of reasons to worship and praise God. On Monday of this week, Episode #1036, we talked about how vital praise and worship are to our faith journey. This song and this Psalm remind us that there are so many reasons we can be grateful to the Lord.
Let’s first look at these verses. They begin with “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and all that is within me, bless his holy name.” This is exactly what we talked about on Monday. Praising the Lord is so important. Even when we are in a really difficult season of life, there are many reasons we can be grateful to the Lord and we can praise Him.
In the verse, it says, “who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from the Pit, who crowns you with steadfast love and mercy, who satisfies you with good as long as you live so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” Those are some pretty amazing things to thank God for. You might not have experienced all of them, but I bet you have experienced some of them. Have you felt God’s steadfast mercy and love in your life? Have you experienced His forgiveness? Some of you have even experienced his healing touch. I know some of you have been redeemed from a pit as well. I love the line that says your youth is renewed like the eagles. We could all use our youth to be renewed.
Can you see all the amazing things God has done and will do for us? Can you see how there are endless possibilities when it comes to praising the Lord? The song for today also talks about praising the Lord. I invite you to listen to the song sometime today. You can look it up on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Music, wherever you usually listen to music. The reason I would like you to listen to the actual song, instead of just this podcast, is that it is really good. Here are the words to the song.
[Chorus]
Bless the Lord, O my soul, O my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before, O my soul
I'll worship Your holy name
As you can see this chorus comes almost directly from the Psalm. I love it when artist do this. I love when they use the Bible verses in the songs. It helps get the Lord’s word out to more people.
Next is Verse 1:
The sun comes up, it's a new day dawning
It's time to sing Your song again
Whatever may pass and whatever lies before me
Let me be singing when the evening comes
This is something we can always be grateful for: that we got to wake up to a brand new day of life. I love how this verse says, whatever may pass and whatever lies before me, let me be singing when the evening comes. Wouldn’t it be great if we could be singing to the Lord at the end of the day, no matter what happens to us throughout the day? How great would it be if we got so used to praising the Lord that we could praise Him no matter the circumstances?
Verse 2:
You're rich in love and You're slow to anger
Your name is great and Your heart is kind
For all Your goodness, I will keep on singing
Ten thousand reasons for my heart to find
We tend to have a perception of God that he is angry at us all the time. We look at some parts of the Old Testament, and we think God is full of Vengeance and Wrath. This is not what He is constantly telling our prayer group. He always tells us how much He loves us. God is rich in love and slow to anger. Does he get angry? Probably, we all do. However, He loves us so much more than his anger. I love how the verse says, “For all your goodness, I will keep on singing ten thousand reasons for my heart to find. If you are looking, there are always reasons to be thankful to God. Even in your most difficult season there are things you can praise the Lord for, you just have to look for them. Or, as I mentioned on Monday, you can put on praise and worship music and let the artists praise the Lord for you!
[Verse 3]
And on that day when my strength is failing
The end draws near and my time has come
Still, my soul will sing Your praise unending
Ten thousand years and then forevermore
Forevermore
It is beautiful to think about praising the Lord when our time on this earth is ending. When we can feel our strength failing. How great would it be to get to the end of our lives and still want to sing the Lord’s praises. I like how it says ten thousand years and then forever more. Once we are in heaven, all will make sense. We will understand all the things that we don’t understand now. Then we will get to praise the Lord for all eternity.
[Chorus]
Bless the Lord, O my soul, O my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before, O my soul
I'll worship Your holy name
This song is such a great song to play when you want to worship the Lord. As I listened to it last night at prayer group I knew I would be listening to it, more often. It's a great way to praise the Lord!
Dear Heavenly Father, I ask to you bless all those listening to this episode. Lord we love you and we are so grateful for all you do for us. We are sorry we don’t always appreciate all you do. We are sorry that we don’t always know how to praise you. Please help us with this Lord. Please stir our hearts and help us to learn to praise you more often. We want to always be telling you how much we appreciate you. We ask all this in accordance with your will and in Jesus’s holy name, Amen!
Thank you so much for joining me on this journey to walk boldly with Jesus. I have opened the registration for my retreat, so please CLICK HERE to check out all the details. I hope you can join me! I look forward to meeting you all here again on Monday. Remember, Jesus loves you just as you are, and so do I! Have a blessed weekend!
Today’s Word from the Lord was received in January 2025 by a member of my Catholic Charismatic Prayer Group. If you have any questions about the prayer group, these words, or how to join us for a meeting, please email CatholicCharismaticPrayerGroup@gmail.com. Today’s Word from the Lord is, “Do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus. Bless and care for those who will touch your life today. Today is all you have, and it will require all your love.”