This psalm captures the essence of salvation in every way, reminding us to care for our souls just as we care for our bodies. Sadly, many ignore the soul altogether, and some do not even recognize its existence. It is only at death that people often say, “May the departed soul rest in peace,” a phrase said without true understanding. Paul spoke of the inner self being renewed even as the outer body withers away. When our bodies fall ill, we promptly seek treatment—but what about our souls, which silently suffer from neglect?
Through the word of this Psalm, the psalmist thanks God for all He has done for his soul. Yet today, the same Psalm is often used merely as a thanksgiving prayer for material blessings.
Forget Not All His Benefits
Praise the LORD, my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the LORD, my soul,
and forget not all his benefits—
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. – Psalm 103:1-5 (NIV)
When this Psalm reminds us not to forget all His benefits, we often reduce it merely to material blessings. As for spiritual blessings, there is hardly a question of forgetting them, for in truth, many of us have never even counted them. Paul, in Ephesians 3:20, writes that our God gives more than we ask or imagine. In doing so, Paul exposed our ignorance of the true condition of our souls, which by sin are destined for eternal death, since the wages of sin is death. Yet, in spite of our ignorance, and even when we did not know what to ask for, God demonstrated His love by giving His only begotten Son as the atonement for our sins. Sadly, many still interpret this only as a twofold blessing—as though they asked for something small, but God gave them something greater—missing the depth of God’s redemptive work.
The Psalmist praised God for redeeming his life from the pit and leading him with love and compassion. His words were not about eternal death or eternal life, but an expression of heartfelt gratitude for God’s deliverance—saving him from dying at the hands of his enemies. Whenever we acknowledge God’s work in our lives, whether great or small, even with our limited understanding, He uses those moments to unveil the deeper mysteries of His Kingdom. Now, through the very words of this Psalm, God reveals and reaffirms the story of redemption.
People often use this Psalm as a prayer of thanksgiving when they are recovered from sickness, forgetting the complete healing God had already given long ago. In reality, by forgiving our sins, God removed the burden of guilt, which is often the root cause of many of our physical ailments. To truly worship and thank Him, we must align our hearts with His, seeing His work from the right perspective.
God Is Abounding In Love
The LORD works righteousness
and justice for all the oppressed.
He made known his ways to Moses,
his deeds to the people of Israel:
The LORD is compassionate and gracious,
slow to anger, abounding in love. – Psalm 103:6-8 (NIV)
God’s love was not made known to David through John’s Gospel—for it had not yet been written—but through a personal encounter with the Lord. David came to understand the abounding love of God by experiencing it firsthand. This shows us that while many life-giving words testify about the love and works of our Father, only a personal encounter with Him allows us to truly know and experience that unconditional love. Otherwise, it remains second-hand knowledge, confined to what others have written.
It is remarkable that David perceived God’s love at a time when most of his contemporaries feared Him as an angry and vengeful person. Jesus illustrated this misplaced fear in the parable of the ten talents, where the servant hid his single talent because of a distorted view of his master. The master, in turn, judged him according to the very words that revealed his misguided perception.
The Lord’s righteousness and justice for the oppressed often remain a mystery until Jesus revealed God’s heart more clearly. He explained that our Father causes His sun to rise on both the righteous and the wicked alike (Matthew 5:45). Scripture reminds us that God makes His ways known to His servants, while His deeds are seen by the believers. The true responsibility of God’s servants is to lead believers into the understanding of His ways, not merely leave them in awe of His deeds. Yet, tragically, many servants conceal God’s ways to advance their own schemes.
The Amazing Grace
He will not always accuse,
nor will he harbor his anger forever;
he does not treat us as our sins deserve
or repay us according to our iniquities.
For as high as the heavens are above the earth,
so great is his love for those who fear him;
as far as the east is from the west,
so far has he removed our transgressions from us. – Psalms 103:9-12 (NIV)
Just as the Psalmist poured out his heart, John Newton wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace” around 1772, reflecting on his past as a slave trader and his spiritual conversion in 1748 after a near-death experience at sea. We treasure these two masterpieces—reading the psalms and singing this hymn often. But the real question is: have we truly grasped that amazing grace through personal experience, or are we merely repeating what we have heard?
Without a personal encounter with God’s grace, we may fall into viewing Him as an accuser—imagining that He vents His anger on us through troubles and sickness. In such a state, we wander away from Him, seeking some form of atonement for our sins on our own. Yet we do not fully grasp the depth of our iniquities, nor the far greater measure of His grace that surpasses them. In longing for human love and experiencing it in limited ways, we often underestimate God’s immeasurable love—mistaking it for something like human affection, learned mainly through our fellowships. In doing so, we miss the unexplainable reality of how God truly loves us.
David, however, had the assurance of forgiveness long before Calvary. He experienced it when he confessed his sin and received God’s mercy. Although forgiveness was made available to all mankind through Jesus’ atoning sacrifice on the cross, we can only claim it personally when we sincerely confess our sins (1 John 1:9).
The Father Who Knows Us
As a father has compassion on his children,
so the LORD has compassion on those who fear him;
for he knows how we are formed,
he remembers that we are dust.
The life of mortals is like grass,
they flourish like a flower of the field;
the wind blows over it and it is gone,
and its place remembers it no more.
But from everlasting to everlasting
the LORD’s love is with those who fear him,
and his righteousness with their children’s children —
with those who keep his covenant
and remember to obey his precepts. – Psalm 103:13-18 (NIV)
We have never heard of a hen harming her chicks, because she knows how fragile they are. In the same way, a genuine earthly father understands the weaknesses of his children and seeks to strengthen them. By contrast, when people in the world discover our weaknesses, they often use them for their own advantage rather than helping us overcome them. But our Father God declares: “My grace is sufficient for you, for My power is made perfect in weakness.” In Him, our weakness becomes the place where His strength fills us.
In human relationships—especially between spouses—people tend to conceal their weaknesses, which often leads to a constant state of tension. Yet our relationship with our Father God is different. We do not need to hide anything from Him, for He already knows our weaknesses—after all, He is the One who created us. Though we cannot fully comprehend the depth of God’s love, we can experience it in our lives by entrusting all our cares and anxieties into His hands.
Praise The Lord, My Soul
The LORD has established his throne in heaven,
and his kingdom rules over all.
Praise the LORD, you his angels,
you mighty ones who do his bidding,
who obey his word.
Praise the LORD, all his heavenly hosts,
you his servants who do his will.
Praise the LORD, all his works
everywhere in his dominion.
Praise the LORD, my soul. – Psalm 103:19-22 (NIV)
It is truly astonishing to see the insight given by the Holy Spirit when David declared that “the LORD has established His throne in heaven.” David, who could have been most concerned with securing his own throne in Jerusalem, did not focus on his temporary kingdom. Instead, he spoke of the eternal throne in heaven, established for Christ to reign forever. Sadly, even though Jesus Himself taught this truth, His disciples often struggled to grasp it, their minds being preoccupied with earthly matters.
When the Psalmist called upon the angels, the heavenly hosts, and the servants of God to praise the Lord, he was affirming that the God who dwells within our hearts is greater than all things, and therefore all creation owes Him endless praise. In this fallen world, God deeply loves and cares for our souls, preserving them from destruction by offering His Son on the cross. Yet, while God values our souls, we often neglect them, preoccupied instead with the frailty of our bodies, unaware of the true condition of our inner being.
In such moments, the evil spirit works within us, strengthening our bodies to act against God—fueling both our thoughts and our deeds. In short, the enemy empowers the body, not the soul, precisely to make us forget about the very soul that matters most. Whenever doubts about God’s love or faithfulness cloud our minds, our souls grow weary, even to the point of spiritual death. This is why Scripture counts grumbling as sin—it is not just discontent, but a slow destruction of our souls through complaints and frustrations (Numbers 14:2,9-11, Ephesians 4:30).
As grumbling against God weakens our soul, praising God nurtures our soul. Since our Father treasures our souls, it is our duty to guard them diligently. We must speak to our souls, urging them to praise God—not only for what He has done but also for who He is. Just as we encourage others to joyfully praise God in Sunday worship, we must also remind our own souls to praise Him in spirit and in truth.
Prayer:
Dear God, thank You for this Psalm from David. Help us remember to praise You, not just for material blessings, but for Your redeeming work. May we lift our souls in praise to You every day. Amen.
The Jordan Valley 
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