Do You Remember to Bless the Lord?
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
Those are the lyrics from the song “10,000 Reasons” co-written by Matt Redman and Jonas Myrin about seven years ago. The lyrics came to mind as I sat down to write my monthly message. “Bless the Lord, O my soul.” Isn’t it odd we continually need to command our souls to bless the Lord? The Psalms repeatedly tell us to bless the Lord. The New Testament is filled with encouragements, instructions and, if you will, commands to bless the Lord — to rejoice in Him, to lift Him high, to worship and adore Him. We are to have a heart of gratitude and love. That heart produces love and joy. Bless the Lord O my soul. Now is the time to sing like never before.
The sun comes up.It’s a new day dawning.It’s time to sing Your song again.Whatever may passAnd whatever lies before me,Let me be singingWhen the evening comes.
Day in and day out, we are to be a people of praise. We often separate our prayer life from our daily routines. So, during prayer times, we give thanks, offer praise and rejoice, but then forget to continue our praise as we move through our day. Each new dawn is a time to begin our praise and continue our praise through our day until the evening comes. What a wonderful way to live our days. I confess, I often fail at this. I have the best of intentions — but life happens and I get distracted. So, I also need to hear and heed the command to “worship the Lord O my soul” from sun rise to sun set.Why? Because He is worthy. We could never run out of reasons why He is worthy of our worship and of our praise. The lyrics in this song only touch the surface of why our Lord deserves our worship — His rich love, perfect temperament, kind heart, great name and His faithful goodness! Then there is His trustworthy forgiveness, perfect protection, His never-ending compassion and mercy that’s new and replenished every new day! And, let’s not forget His salvation is complete and strong and it will not let us down. He is gentle and understanding with us. He is honest, powerful, all knowing, and there is no where we can hide from Him. He loves us beyond what we deserve. There is so much more to mention and we haven’t even touched those things that are personal to us — the things that He’s done for us individually.
You’re rich in loveAnd You’re slow to anger.Your name is greatAnd Your heart is kind.For all Your goodnessI will keep on singing.
If we spend our lives praising the Lord, when our time here is over, we will find two things are true. One, that we are ready to meet our Lord face to face. We will be so excited. And second, we will just have begun our eternal journey of praising Him.
And on that dayWhen my strength is failing,The end draws nearAnd my time has comeStill my soul willSing Your praise unending.
I cannot encourage us enough to cultivate this attitude of praise. I don’t mean to be a people who give lip service to praise. I mean to actually be a people where praise dwells in our hearts. For our Lord is worthy! So, bless the Lord O My Soul.Listen to Matt Redman’s song on YouTube – 10,000 Reasons (Bless the Lord).