Bless the Lord I

Wednesday 8 February
READ: Psa. 103: 1 – 4
MORE LESSON: Psa. 135: 19 - 21

The psalmist told his soul to bless the Lord. Sometimes you might have to talk to yourself in life. Humans have a tendency to complain than to thank. We must therefore compel our souls to bless God. The way to cultivate a culture of always blessing the Lord is by learning not to forget His benefits. It is more natural for men to forget good things and remember bad things. A person receives a blessing and by the next day, he has forgotten it and in the face of one single challenge, he behaves as if nothing good has ever happened to him. The same person, if something bad happened to him, would keep it in memory and complain about it for years. Why accumulate the garbage of many years in your heart and carry it around? Throw away the bad and keep the good. The way of blessedness is to always remember the blessings and benefits of God in your life while you choose to forget the disappointments and failures of yesterday that want to haunt you today.
Whenever you are agitated and it looks like it is difficult to praise, look very well at the things that God has done for you in the past and let them be a reason for you to start blessing His name. This is why the psalmist reminded his soul to bless the Lord. Today you need to bless the Lord even if it will entail you telling your soul to consciously start counting the reasons to give God praise. The hymn writer says, 'Count your blessings; name them one by one and it will surprise you what the Lord has done.' It sometimes takes a deliberate effort to thank God.
If the devil deceives anyone by convincing him that God has never done anything for him in the past, such a person still has a reason to bless the Lord. He can bless the Lord for what God has done for others. If you claim that God has never done anything for you, then bless the Lord for me because He has done a lot for me. You can also bless the Lord for your neighbour who He has equally done something for. However, the plain truth is that there is no one that God has not done a lot for in the past and even in the present. This is why the culture of thanking God is very important, Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits. Count your many benefits today, including that you are alive and reading this piece now! Tell God “thank you”.

Prayer/Action
* Lord, my soul magnifies You for the gift of life, in the name of Jesus.
* Thank You Lord for good health, security and blessedness that I enjoy day by day, in Jesus’ name.

TODAY'S PROPHETIC PRAYER
I have been empowered to shine in 2017, and I shall shine, no dull moment, it's from glory to glory, in Jesus' glorious name.