12/3/2023
Elijah McSwain, Sr.
Psalm 103:1-5 NKJV — Bless the LORD, O my soul; and all that is within me, bless His holy name! Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all His benefits: who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases, who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies, who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.
A.W. Tozer stated, “the goodness of God is infinitely more wonderful than we will ever be able to comprehend.” 1 The greatness of the Lord as demonstrated through His nature, attributes, and being is indescribable in totality from our human perspective. God’s goodness is unmatched and inexhaustible. As we recall the activity of God in our lives, we truly cannot bless Him enough for the countless deeds that He has performed on our behalf. Psalm 40:5 sums this truth up by the declaration, "many, O LORD my God, are Your wonderful works which You have done; and Your thoughts toward us cannot be recounted to You in order; if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered."
Here in Psalm 103, the psalmist David reflected upon the goodness of God as manifested in his life. The compassionate nature of God stirred within David a desire to bless the Lord for His kind acts of benevolence. David described the goodness of the Lord as a measure of God’s benefits as displayed through divine forgiveness, healing, redemption, loving-kindness, tender mercies, and lastly God’s divine satisfaction. David’s prior experience with God resulted in a psalm of thanksgiving and praise as he blessed God with every fiber within himself.
In a similar manner, every believer should extol the Lord for His innumerable wonderful works that He has executed toward us. As children of God, if we look back over the span of our lives, we could not tally up all the blessings that God has bestowed upon us.
As we give our attention to this written composition pertaining to Bless The Lord For His Compassion, it is crucial that we take note of the adornment of God’s kindness and the blessedness of God’s kindness and mercy.
The Adornment of God’s Kindness
In this psalm, David stressed that God crowns His children with loving-kindness and tender mercies. The Hebrew word for crowns suggest that God encompasses or surrounds His people with love and mercy. The love of God and the mercy of God are given to beautify the lives of God's people. The Lord of heaven and earth who encompasses divine royalty chooses to crown us with His heavenly attributes of grace and mercy. The loving-kindness and tender mercies of God is conferred upon us as a distinguishing mark of our association with God.
The association of being crowned with loving-kindness and tender mercies is contingent upon our relational position with God by means of our faith. The life of every believer is distinctly marked by the Lord’s divine act of kindness through saving faith.
Our belief in God and in the work of Jesus as well as the Person of Jesus Christ enables every repentant sinner who has turned to God and forsaken sin to be recipients of God’s salvation in connection with His covenant love and mercy. The loving-kindness of the Lord speaks to being crowned with His covenantal love. The word for loving-kindness is hesed. It is said that “hesed is a “covenant” kind of love, established in the Old Testament through God’s covenant with Israel, and renewed afresh in the New Testament through the shedding of Jesus’ blood on the cross.” 2
As believers, we are crowned with God’s promise to care for us, His display of love and compassion geared toward us, His willingness to protect us, and His providential nature to lead us into eternity in heaven. The Hebrew word for mercies is raham which denotes that the Lord has pity on us. He is merciful toward us in not treating us as our sins deserve. The notion that we are crowned with His mercy shows forth His affectionate nature to withhold from us that which rightfully should have been warranted to our account. Psalm 103:8-14 is a prime summation of this truth and known reality.
Psalm 103:8-14 NKJV — The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in mercy. He will not always strive with us, nor will He keep His anger forever. He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor punished us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is His mercy toward those who fear Him; As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us. As a father pities his children, so the LORD pities those who fear Him. For He knows our frame; He remembers that we are dust.
With this in view, the community of faith has every reason to bless the Lord. In blessing God, every believer should be reminded of the following biblical truths.
Psalm 63:3 NKJV — "Because Your loving-kindness is better than life, my lips shall praise You."
Psalm 9:1-2 NKJV — I will praise You, O LORD, with my whole heart; I will tell of all Your marvelous works. I will be glad and rejoice in You; I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High.
In comparison to David, our minds should recount the goodness of God and in return praise should register from our lips as we thank Him for His mighty acts.
One writer acclaimed that “the Lord crowns you with loving-kindness and compassion. Often we long for and become very distraught and bent out of shape over the lack of loving-kindness or compassion from various relationships in our lives. Certainly it is natural to desire these things, but when we become discouraged, angry, hopeless or bitter in response to these perceived deficiencies, we have forgotten something. We have forgotten the characteristic benefits from the Lord of loving-kindness and compassion. And in our forgetting we stopped blessing the Lord. Instead we become idolaters longing for loving-kindness and compassion of others more than the daily experience and acknowledgment of the Lord’s loving-kindness and compassion toward us. Whenever we cease to bless the Lord for His loving-kindness and compassion we inevitably try to find that blessedness somewhere else and are always sourly disappointed. Turn to the One who crowns you with these benefits daily and bless Him for it. Bless the One who crowns you with loving-kindness and compassion.” 3
The elect of God should always remember that we are crowned, encompassed, and surrounded by the loving-kindness and mercies of God. This very reality should never be something that we forget. In fact, Scripture constantly bring these actualities to our attention. The following verses are just a glimpse of what was written for our learning to help us to always be in a spiritual posture to bless God.
Psalm 86:15 NKJV — "But You, O Lord, are a God full of compassion, and gracious, longsuffering and abundant in mercy and truth."
Psalm 138:2a NKJV — "I will worship toward Your holy temple, annd praise Your name for Your loving-kindness and Your truth.
We are crowned with the love of God and the mercy of God, therefore, praise unto God should be given willingly, voluntarily, gratefully, regularly, and reverently.
The Blessedness of God’s Kindness and Mercy
The blessedness of God’s compassion is not only depicted in just being crowned with loving-kindness and tender mercies but the blessings lie within the very nature of God’s loving-kindness and tender mercies. As aforementioned, loving-kindness speaks to the covenantal love of God and mercy speaks to the compassionate nature of God. The question may be posed, why does God extend His loving-kindness and mercy unto us? The answer to this question points to its existence being tied to the very essence of who God is in relation to who we are.
God is holy. We are sinful. God is abounding in mercy. We are recurrently unmerciful to others at various intervals in our lives. God is compassionate. We are often at times unloving. God is gracious. We are frequently ill-mannered and ungracious. God is perfect. We are imperfect.
In spite of how we constantly fail to live up to His standard, He has pity on us as a result of our frailty and human weakness in light of His character and goodwill (cf. Psalm 103:14). John Wesley verbalized it this way, the weakness and mortality of our natures and the frailty of our condition is so vile that if He should let loose His hand upon us, we should be irrecoverably destroyed. 4 The removal of God’s hand of mercy and kindness would lead to our sudden demise. However, we are eternally grateful that God extends these benefits unto us. The writings of Daniel 9:9 pens that “to the Lord our God belong mercy and forgiveness, though we have rebelled against Him." Despite how much we have rebelled against God, He chooses to continually show us grace and mercy.
John Gill wrote that “mercy is His nature, and what He delights in. It is abundant, and He is plenteous in it the fountain of mercy is with Him, and numerous are the streams which flow from it, called “the multitude of His tender mercies.” 5
As a result, the abounding and abundant characteristics of God are evidently shown in our lives as God is very patience with us in our state of imperfection. As Christians, when we fail to live up to the precepts of God, He shows forth His grace, love, and mercy to cleanse us of our sins and all unrighteousness upon our repentance and confession before Him. Lamentations paints the imagery of God’s compassion toward His people.
Lamentations 3:22-24 NKJV — Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness. “The LORD is my portion,” says my soul, “Therefore I hope in Him!”
As we journey in our Christian walk with God, there will be horrendous moments where we fail the Lord miserably but His unfailing love and compassion is ever present in those moments to help us get back on the right course. According to the Life Application Study Bible “the faithful love of the LORD never ends! His mercies never cease.” Each day when we wake up, God’s mercy greets us. No other faith has a fresh outpouring of grace each day. God always willingly responds with help when we ask. You may have some sin in your life that you think God will not forgive. But He is the Lord of hope (3:21), love (3:22), faithfulness (3:23), and salvation (3:26). God’s compassionate love and mercy are greater than any sin, and He promises forgiveness to those who repent.” 6
Micah 7:18-19 proclaims "who is a God like You, pardoning iniquity and passing over the transgression of the remnant of His heritage? He does not retain His anger forever, because He delights in mercy. He will again have compassion on us, and will subdue our iniquities. You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea."
God delights to show His followers mercy. God takes pleasure in being affectionate unto the redeemed who strayed away. God delights in showing the extension of who He is. He openly welcomes people to turn to Him and forsake their own way of living. He is not reluctant to forgive nor does He holds fast to a grudging position toward us. He is overjoyed when the avenue of repentance is utilized as believers are broken over sin. In response to our brokenness, God casts our sins into the depths of the sea never to bring those wrongdoings up again. God loves us despite of our inclination and tendency toward sin. The benevolence of God upon us should cause us to bless Him as we are blessed by His loving-kindness and mercy.
Psalm 40:11 says "do not withhold Your tender mercies from me, O LORD; let Your loving-kindness and Your truth continually preserve me."
Thank God for His compassion by which we are preserved. Adam Clarke articulated that God's mercy in alignment with divine truth involves the notion of “mercy to help me, truth to direct me and, by the operation of both, I shall be continually preserved from sin and evil.” 7
References
John Wesley’s Explanatory Notes
Gill’s Exposition of the Whole Bible
Life Application Study Bible
Clarke, Adam. “Commentary on Psalms 40:11”. “The Adam Clarke Commentary”.