05/13

Bless God

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

Like the English language, in the Hebrew language there can be more than one meaning to a word. The Hebrew word for praise, barak, means “to kneel before the Lord, to bow,” but it also means, “to bless.”

God blesses His people all the time. When God blesses us, He is doing us good. He is extending His grace. He is giving us good things. He is allowing us to partake of His life – what He has to give. I remember a moment with God that I had years ago. My husband and I were at a church conference, preparing to move to another country as missionaries. When we checked out of our hotel, we learned that someone had already taken care of our bill. I was thankful. I was thankful to the person who had blessed us, and I was thankful to God for moving on this person to bless us. As we began our drive back home, I said to the Lord, “You bless me all the time, I want to do something to bless You, but how could I ever bless You?” He reminded me of scriptures in the Bible that mention blessing the Lord with our praise. God is blessed when we honor Him with hearts of praise. I began to sing to Him in the car, blessing God with what I had, my praise. It was a beautiful exchange of love between God and me.

When we bless God, we are giving Him honor, glorifying His name. We are lifting Him up. We are promoting Him and making His name famous. We are doing Him good, being helpful to Him and to His cause. We bless Him with our song, but we also bless Him with our serve – our actions that give God what He wants. He wants us, and God wants us to reach others that He sent His Son to die for. We bless God when we give to His cause, giving from our resources to cause His kingdom purpose to advance in our city and in our world.

When we bless God, we are bringing him joy. Our gift to Him is our life, our heart. Our gift to Him is our love. Our gift to Him is our praise, and He receives what we have to give with joy because He loves us. We bless God when we show Him we want our life to be intertwined with His. What a wonderful opportunity that we have to bless God with our praise!

Application: Do you ever feel that what you have to offer God isn’t enough? Know that your value comes from the price God paid for you – the blood of His Son. You have tremendous value and the surrender of your praise blesses the God of the universe.

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