Trust God, Not His Blessings

Earlier today as I continued my personal study of the Psalms, I felt deeply impressed to do a little backtracking. The Lord led me to return to the 103rd Psalm, and to look carefully at the first two verses. David both loved and trusted in his faithful God. He began this psalm by saying, "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."

With all the personal issues which have come to my wife and me of late, these words really spoke to me in a most unique and wonderful way. What suddenly struck me was that David did not begin this psalm with "Bless the Lord for all His benefits." He began it by expressing devotion to his God: "Bless the Lord O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name!" It is my belief that David did not want to give his reader the impression that he loved his Lord solely because of all the blessings (benefits) he had received from Him. He doubtless knew that would be a shallow, surface kind of devotion rather than a deep, genuine love for his Lord.

What does this say to us, then? I believe it tells us that we should want to worship and love our God not for His blessings He so graciously sends to us, but because He is our God, and we are His people, forever, provided, of course our faith is in His blessed Son Jesus Christ. Putting it another way, we are to love Him, not the temporal benefits! These come and go, but God is our God forever, and He will never leave us, nor forsake us.

One final thought came to me in connection with this: that no matter what comes to me, and to any of God's children, it is always good. Even sickness can be a good thing, provided we know it is from an all-wise heavenly Father who causes all things to work together for our eternal good. It is good because it, along with all other things, can be used by God to bring us into a closer, more trusting relationship with Him and His blessed Son Jesus Christ. And I know of no other blessing or benefit as wonderful as that.

"If there be any virtue, if there be any praise, thing on these things." (Phil. 4:8).