Bless The Lord!

Psalm 103:1 “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name!”

The 103rd Psalm is a well-known passage of scripture. We read it often, quote it, and even sing it. But all too often we skip ahead to verse 3, where David starts listing all the things that God does for us! But look again at the very first thing David wrote. This Psalm isn’t about God blessing us - it’s about our soul blessing Him!

If you remember, we are made up of three parts: spirit, soul, and body.  When we were born again, the real us (our spirit) was totally recreated! Before salvation, our spirit was dead in sin - but now it is alive in Jesus Christ! 2 Corinthians 5:17 shows us this: “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.” Now that we’re born again, our spirit craves the things of God. We desperately desire God’s Word, we long to obey His commands, and there’s nothing we enjoy more than to spend time with Him and His people. This is true of every born-again believer!

So why do these desires sound foreign to so many of God’s people? It’s because they still think their soul is the real them! The soul is a person’s thoughts, desires, and emotions. Actually, let me clarify - it is a person’s natural thoughts, desires, and emotions. The Hebrew word for soul is “nephesh.” This word speaks of the natural mind. In fact, the soul is truly a part of nature - even animals themselves have souls, as limited as they may be. Animals think things through, make decisions based on their surroundings, and even possess emotions like fear and contentment. You see? What truly separates us from the rest of nature is our third part - our spirit!

When you’re born again, you are given a brand new spirit, but your soul remains the same!  All of a sudden, your godly spirit begins to desire everything that God has. This brings it into conflict with your soul, which is still thinking the same thoughts and desiring the same things. This is the fight every believer faces for the rest of their time on earth - spirit vs. soul, new vs. old, spiritual vs. carnal. When I’m teaching kids I call it, “The Battle Of The Two Mes.” It all boils down to one thing - are you going to obey God or do your own thing?

Some may say, “If being born again leads to this conflict, then why didn’t God just give us new souls too?” Trust me on this, you’re glad He didn’t! Everything you’ve ever learned. from “don’t touch a hot stove” to “now I know my ABCs”, is stored in your soul! If God replaced your soul, you would have to re-learn everything you know right now! Going even further than that, your soul holds all of your memories. Aren’t there things in your life (even before salvation) that you want to remember? Important memories - such as memories of loved ones, cherished times, and lessons learned the hard way - are also stored in your soul. God never intended to replace your soul - He intended you to renew it!

Romans 12:2 “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

How do we win the battle of the soul? By renewing your mind with God’s Word. This is what the Bible refers to as the salvation of your soul. We see this in James 1:21, “Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.” God’s plan was to help you tame your soul and bring it under the control of your recreated spirit!

So what does this have to do with Psalm 103? Listen again to what David said: “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name!” We know that David was a worshipper. It seems as if worship just flowed out of Him! But in Psalm 103, David seems to be reminding himself to worship God. Why? He was stirring up worship from his soul!

Most believers think that real worship only happens when they get all emotional. They mix up worship from the spirit and worship from the soul. True worship always comes from the spirit. Our new nature loves to worship God - it flows out of our spirit naturally. Our spirit will worship God as a default - for Who He is! But worship out of the soul - from the mind, will and emotions - is kind of shallow. This kind of worship comes and goes based on the way we feel. So the key to true worship is remembering where it really comes from: your new nature.

Be that as it may, I do enjoy getting my soul involved in worship! We’ve already seen that David did too! I want to show you the right way to get your soul into your worship. The key isn’t going to church, sitting next to the right person, turning the lights down just right, and singing the right song. The key to having your soul agree with your spirit in worship is found in the very next verse...

Psalm 103:1,2 “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits...”

This is why David began to list the blessings that God gave him; to stir up his soul! When you begin to remember all the things that God has done for you, and list them out loud, it stirs up your mind and your emotions. You begin to realize how much He deserves for what He’s done for you. Then you begin to stir up your desire - even your soulish desire - to worship your Heavenly Father.

Do you remember His benefits? If you’ll read the next few verses, David will list some of them. Meditate on what God has done for you - this will stir your soul into worship. When you’re worshipping God from your spirit, soul and body; then you can truly say, “Bless the LORD...all that is within me, bless His holy name!”

Everyone Has A Place

(If you want to read more on this subject - check out this post too!)

Proverbs 27:8 “Like a bird that wanders from its nest Is a man who wanders from his place.”

Everyone has a place. It’s the place you’re designed to be - the place God calls you to be. It’s where you’ll find you’re greatest fulfillment. It’s where God expects you to be when He wants to use you. It’s the spot where you can be the greatest blessing to Heaven and humanity. It’s the place you belong.

Jacob found that place in Genesis 28:11 - it was first called the “certain place.” Later, Jacob realized that place was where God was. “Surely Yahweh is in this place and I didn’t know it!...How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God! This is the gate of Heaven!” Jacob found out that his place was Bethel - the house of God!

Later in life, Jacob was aimless and without direction. He just experienced a family tragedy. His only daughter was raped and his sons massacred the whole town where her rapist lived. Now Jacob feared for his life! He was feeling down, depressed, probably doubting the promise God had made to him. What was God’s answer for him? Genesis 35:1 “Arise, go up to Bethel and dwell there...” God’s response was to send him back to the place he started; that certain place, the awesome place, the house of God!

About 450 years later, after God had brought Jacob’s descendants out of Egypt, He gave them almost the same command. In Deuteronomy 12:2 God describes how the nations in Canaan were worshipping on every hill and under every tree - wherever they felt like. In verses 5-7 He says, “But you shall seek the place where the Lord your God chooses, out of all your tribes, to put His name for His dwelling place; and there you shall go. There you shall take your burnt offerings, your sacrifices, your tithes, the heave offerings of your hand, your vowed offerings, your freewill offerings, and the firstborn of your herds and flocks.  And there you shall eat before the Lord your God, and you shall rejoice in all to which you have put your hand, you and your households, in which the Lord your God has blessed you.”

God declared that there was one place where He called His people to worship Him - and that’s where they would receive His blessing.

David understood this. When he was running from Jerusalem, from his son Absalom, The priests were going to carry the Ark of the Covenant with him. David stopped them and said, “Carry the ark of God back into the city. If I find favor in the eyes of the Lord, He will bring me back and show me both it and His dwelling place.” David knew that it was his responsibility to go to that set place - he couldn’t move it around with him!

When David’s son Solomon built the first temple, that was where God set His place. That was the place God picked to meet with His people. After the dedication, God met with Solomon and said, “I have heard your prayer, and have chosen this place for Myself as a house of sacrifice. When I shut up heaven and there is no rain, or command the locusts to devour the land, or send pestilence among My people, if My people who are called by My name will humble themselves, and pray and seek My face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land. Now My eyes will be open and My ears attentive to prayer made in this place. For now I have chosen and sanctified this house, that My name may be there forever; and My eyes and My heart will be there perpetually.”

Can you see that it has always been God’s plan to emphasize certain places? For Jacob, it was Bethel. For Israel, it was the tabernacle and then the temple. But this place is always called “the house of God.”

Fast forward to the New Testament. Now we have believers who claim that they don’t have the responsibility to go anywhere. But we see in Hebrews 10:25 that we’re still called to assemble together. 1 Timothy 3:15 tells us where we’re supposed to do this - “in the house of God, which is the church of the living God.” God still has a place where He calls His people to come to Him - the church!

There is a place for you. You were never called to be a loner or a spiritual floater. You were called to be rooted in God’s house! You need to send those roots deep. You need to decide right now that nothing (no offense, no lure of the world, and no trap of the enemy) can ever pull you out of your place! Here’s why: Psalm 133 says that God commands His blessing to a certain place - where brothers dwell together in unity!

Have you found your place yet?

Why It's Important (Standing Up for Jesus' Virgin Birth)

Psalm 89:35 “Once I have sworn by My holiness. I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure forever and his throne as the sun before us.”

Psalm 132:11 “The Lord has sworn in truth unto David that He will not turn from it. ‘Of the fruit of thy body will I set upon thy throne.”

David was a man after God’s heart. He understood the grace and the love of God more than anyone else in the Old Testament. He was the one who wrote, “Blessed is the man whose sins are forgiven.” (Psalm 32). He was the one who inspired Proverbs 4. He was the one who first desired to build a permanent place to worship God – a “house” if you will. God responded to this desire of David’s by promising an everlasting “house” for David; a descendant from his own body Who will rule forever – the Messiah. That promise is what we see in Psalm 89:35 and 132:11; the Messiah would come from David’s line.

Although David had many sons (so many that it takes three verses to list them  all! – 2 Samuel 5:14-16), his royal lineage passed through his son Solomon. Solomon was famous for being the richest king ever. He was also the wisest, writing the majority of the book of Proverbs, as well as Ecclesiastes and Song of Solomon. But he wasn’t completely sold out to God like his father was – eventually “marrying” a thousand women! His mistakes split the kingdom during the reign of his son, Rehoboam. But still God preserved the lineage of David; and his descendant ruled the tribe of Judah for centuries.

Enter Jeconiah, king of Judah, and son of the famous King Josiah. Jeconiah was a desperately wicked king during what could only be considered the dark ages of the kingdom. He continued in his wickedness despite repeated warnings from the prophet Jeremiah. His stubbornness and unrepentant heart led to this judgment from God through Jeremiah.

Is this man Jeconiah a despised broken idol? Is he a vessel wherein is no pleasure? Why then are they cast out, he and his seed, and are cast into a land which they know not? O earth, earth, earth! Hear the word of the LORD. Thus saith the LORD, Write this man childless, a man that shall not prosper in his days: for no man of his seed shall prosper, sitting upon the throne of David, and ruling any more in Judah. (emphasis added) Jeremiah 22:28-30

Rabbis today still call this the greatest theological problem in Jewish history. None of Jeconiah’s descendants could sit on David’s throne! How can God promise that the Messiah would come from David’s body and sit on his throne, and then pronounce a curse like this on one of his descendants? Many orthodox Jews who understand this have simply given up; stating that the Messiah simply can’t come now. What a tragic way of reading the Old Testament!

However, God had an amazing plan to circumnavigate Jeconiah’s curse! His answer? The virgin birth of Jesus Christ! You see, Jesus’ virgin birth protects His divinity (He had no natural father) and fulfills scripture (Isaiah 7:14). But this miraculous event also confirmed that the Messiah would come from David’s family line!

In Matthew chapter 1 we see that Jesus’ adoptive father, Joseph, is descended from Solomon. When he adopted Jesus, he gave Him the legal rights to David’s throne. David’s kingdom was rightfully Jesus’. So there you have it, Someone who wasn’t in Solomon’s line of kings now had the right to David’s throne. Problem solved, right?

Let’s read those verses again.

Psalm 89:35 “Once I have sworn by My holiness. I will not lie unto David. His seed shall endure forever and his throne as the sun before us.”

Psalm 132:11 “The Lord has sworn in truth unto David that He will not turn from it. ‘Of the fruit of thy body (natural descendants) will I set upon thy throne.”

Do you see it? The promised Messiah had to be David’s physical descendant, not simply his legal heir. If Jesus was only adopted into David’s legal line, He would be the fulfillment of David’s promise? So what’s the answer?

Matthew and Luke both record Jesus’ genealogy. They both write Joseph as the Jesus’ adopted father. But Matthew wrote that Joseph’s father was Joseph - Luke said it was Heli. In fact, the entire list of names is different from David to Joseph! Surely one of them must be mistaken, right?

Not at all! You see, Heli wasn’t Joseph’s father…he was Mary’s. Heli had two daughters (Matthew 27:56; John 19:25). Mary, Jesus’ mother was the older. Zebedee’s wife, the mother of James and John was the younger.  According to Numbers 27, when a man had only daughters, his inheritance and his family line pass on to the man who marries his oldest daughter. This is why Luke lists Joseph as the son of Heli (Mary’s father) even though Matthew says he is the son of Jacob.

Why does this matter? Follow Luke’s list of Mary’s family back to David - She came from his son Nathan! So, although Jesus’ only physical relative (His mother) did come from David, but not from the cursed royal lineage! Jesus is the physical descendant of David by birth, and the royal heir to David’s throne by adoption! God, in His mercy, worked around the curse that Jeconiah brought on his family!

For unto us a child is born (natural birth), unto us a son is given (adoption): and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counsellor, The mighty God, The everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace. Isaiah 9:6

The Messiah had to be born and adopted!

A Glorious Church

2 Chronicles 1:3-4 Then Solomon, and all the assembly with him, went to the high place that was at Gibeon; for the tabernacle of meeting with God was there, which Moses the servant of the Lord had made in the wilderness. But David had brought up the ark of God from Kirjath Jearim to the place David had prepared for it, for he had pitched a tent for it at Jerusalem.

This passage gives us look at two different tents of worship:

The Tabernacle was the tent that God set up in the wilderness. Moses built it in the book of Exodus. Once he set it up, the Bible says that God's glory filled it. The priests weren't even able to go in at first, because of the glory of God. The Ark of the Covenant was there – a majestic symbol of God's presence. When Israel finally entered the Promise Land, the tabernacle came with them It was set up in Shiloh.

While the Tabernacle was at Shiloh, something devastating happened to it. 1 Samuel chapters 4-6 tells the story: A single, ungodly act by the Israelites caused the Ark of the Covenant to be captured. Although God brought the Ark back to Israel seven months later, it never entered the Tabernacle again. The Tabernacle still functioned though; and it moved from Shiloh to Nob to Gibeon – where it was in the time of Solomon. The priests still performed the religious rituals and ceremonies. From the outsiders point of view, it looked the same. But this tent of worship was missing the Ark, the very symbol of God's presence!

Enter David. God loved David and David loved God! When David became king in Jerusalem, his heart's desire was to have the symbol of God's presence (the Ark) close to him. At the time, the Ark was being cared for by the family of Abinadab in the town of Kirjath Jearim. David's desire was to move it to Jerusalem. After a three-month pit stop at Obed-Edom's house (while David learned a lesson on the proper way to usher in God's presence), the Ark was brought to Jerusalem. David set up a tent for it and appointed Zadok and Abiathar to be priests. A multitude of singers and musicians were there to constantly praise and worship God.

The difference between these two tents was striking. One was beautiful on the outside, the other was rather plain. One had all the religious traditions and customs, the other had heartfelt service and genuine worship. One had the presence of God inside it, the other was hiding its emptiness.

It's the same difference between churches today. One type is all about forms and customs, the other is devoted to God's presence. One can be found in 2 Timothy 3:5 “having a form of godliness but denying its power.” The other can be found in Ephesians 5:27 “a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.”

It's not about how relaxed or how formal your church is. God's presence was in the Tabernacle first, with all it's ceremonies and traditions. And then after staying in David's informal tent, the Ark went to the Temple, with its ceremonies and traditions. So being formal or casual has nothing to do with this. What it's all about is this; are you in a place where God's presence is?

But beyond the local church, are you personally housing God's presence? Or, like so many professing Christians, are you going through the rituals and traditions of “church” without ever seeking the presence of God? You could be in the most devout, powerful and sincere church on the planet and still be worshiping in an empty Tabernacle personally. If I were you, I would find out how to be a part of Jesus' glory-filled church and leave empty traditions behind!