Psalm 103 is a good example of David’s poetry which states that God’s character is always good. In the very first line he writes, “Bless the Lord, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name”. David is not saying that he was going to bless the Lord. What he wrote and said was that he would bless the Lord with all of himself! Physically, spiritually and emotionally he would praise and worship the Lord with every fiber of his being.

God desires the praise and worship of His children but not because He can’t be satisfied with us because we are His children. He desires our praise and worship because of His mercy that He extends to each of us every day. If God did not bless us with our breath and our life each day then we would either be with Him or in hell, depending upon our belief in Jesus for our salvation. God has specific jobs for each of us as believers and we are to seek His wisdom in His Word to find those jobs. It isn’t listed on page 22 in the third paragraph but when you read His Word you can understand, with the Holy Spirit’s help, what God requires of each of us.

He requires obedience to His Word. Of course, the New Testament is our contract because most of the Old Testament is actually sent to the Jewish people. The promises found in the Old Testament are still relevant to us because of the prophecies which are still going to be fulfilled and the promises are partially contained within those prophecies. Each covenant in the Bible explains and confirms the other so you can’t just read the New Testament without the Old Testament. They both are necessary because the whole Bible is God’s inspired Word. He gave it to mankind so that we could learn from His wisdom if we will only read it and do what it says. 

In verse 12 of Psalm 103, David writes something which many of us have heard but maybe never knew exactly where it came from. Verse 12 says: “As far as the east is from the west, so far hath He removed our transgressions from us”. When we pray for God’s forgiveness for something that we have done or something that we said, He puts that sin and its consequences away from us just as David says “as far as the east is from the west”. It is completely gone! God doesn’t place it in a box to be brought out later to torment us because when He sees that it is covered by Jesus’ blood it is forgotten and remembered no more.

That doesn’t mean that we forget it because our memories and our guilt are still present here and now and of course Satan will bring it up and beat us with it as well. So we can’t forget it easily but God has. God’s mercy is everlasting and He grants this to each of us who believe in Jesus for salvation. We don’t have to earn it or pay for it or anything like that. We just have to believe in Jesus and ask for forgiveness in His name. Then we need to walk away from that sin or behavior and never visit it again. That is the hard part for us because sometimes our sin involves something that we really like to do, but we should ask for His strength to stay away from it. One day at a time.

Life is not easy like most people think it is and especially for Christians who are trying to live and walk on the pathway leading to heaven. It is narrow and it has thorns and stones which we may trip on. We can look around from this path and see the things that were our problems before and Satan will make them look so tempting trying to get us to get off of the pathway. That is where prayer for each day comes in handy. Thank God each day that you wake up so that you can take His message to others, even if it is only one person that you tell. They may be the person that you are the only contact with for God that they will have and by saying something about God or your salvation God may use it to draw them to Himself.