Devotions: True Worship

 

Bless the Lord, all you works of His,
In all places of His dominion;
Bless the Lord, O my soul!

Psalm 103:22 New American Standard Bible 1995

 

To bless means to kneel, i.e. an act of adoration. It is worship in its purest sense. This last verse of psalm 103 is calling everything created by God everywhere to praise Him. It is a fitting invocation at the end of a chapter which talks about all the reasons we have to bless the Lord. Everything was created by Him, and that alone is reason for each of us to praise Him, because He made us uniquely and personally. Add to that everything that He has done, His mighty power and awesome works, His love, compassion and mercy, and we have endless motivation for worship. Remembering what He has done really should stir us to praise Him unendingly. I really like how the New Living translates the last line of this verse, “Let all that I am praise the Lord!” We should praise Him with every part of our being, not out of compulsion or duty, but out of love and adoration. That is the key behind the word bless. It is an act of worship that is an expression of our feeling toward God. In a sense it is not something we can conjure up on our own. It is the natural outflow of our hearts. We cannot make ourselves bless Him if we do not love or adore Him. If we look at what He has made and remember what He has done and it does not move us then we need to examine our hearts and ask God to remove the sin and pride which has hardened us. We need to repent and seek restoration in our relationship with God so that we can come back to that posture of true worship.

How do you feel when you remember what God has done for you? What do you think when you see all He has made? Are you moved with awe and love, or do you take it for granted or even feel entitled to it? Ask God to work on your heart, to soften it to His call and work and remove what is hindering your relationship with Him.

 

 

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Translations of Greek and Hebrew words taken from blueletterbible.org