Oh My Soul!
If you've been in church at all during the last 11 years or so, there's every chance that you've heard this song:
Bless the Lord, O my soul, O my soul
Worship His holy name
Sing like never before, O my soul
I’ll worship Your Holy name
It's a real modern classic! It was written by Matt Redman and Jonas Myrin, and it's become one of the popular songs in churches of our day. I want to look at the words this week and maybe this will be the song of our hearts as we walk around and try to live for God wherever we are.
Bless the Lord, Praise the Lord
I love that chorus. Bless the Lord. Oh, my soul. Oh, my soul. Worship His holy name. Now this come straight out of Psalm 103. If you read the English Standard or the King James version, it says, “Bless the Lord”. In a New International says, “Praise the Lord.” Both of them say, “My soul”. My soul, all that is within me. Verse 1 of Psalm 103 says “all that is within me praise his name.”
Worship is Inner
Again we learn that a worship is not primarily something that happens with our mouths. Worship is inner. Worship is something that happens deep down in our hearts. Our mouths express what's happening in our hearts. We can say worshipful words, but if our souls and our hearts and all that is within us, if all of that isn't worshiping, then what does it matter?
I like how the Amplified version of the Bible says in brackets next to the word bless “affectionately and gratefully praise the Lord”. Is that what we are doing? Blessing God, affectionately praising him with gratitude every day from the heart, not just for an hour in church with our lips?
Singing Like Never Before
I like the next two lines of the song that say: Sing like never before oh my soul. I remember singing this song at a Global Ministries convention held at eMseni Methodist. Global Ministries sends out missionaries all over the world, and they had commissioned people for this job. And since I was at eMseni they asked me to sing and we sang this song. And I remember saying to the people, Listen to this line, sing like never before. Let's sing like never before. And let’s really lift the roof as we sing.” Well! It was something else! It was a wonderful memory.
I wonder if we sing like never before wvery time we sing to God! Every time we go to church, we should sing like never before from our souls to give him glory.
Let's fight against the lip service we give God friends, and let’s - whenever we sing - offer Him our hearts and let the words unlock the deepest praise from our hearts. Because God deserves more than just what comes from our lips. He deserves an unceasing flow of praise from our hearts.
Bless the Lord today from your soul friends. He deserves it. And oh what joy you'll find if you do!
