This is your daily reminder. God has not run
out of mercy, not for you, not today. Welcome
to the New Mercies Podcast. Welcome today, February
the 14th. As I'm reading today and looking at
the text today, we are in Psalm 103. I know we're...
Kind of walking through Titus 3 this week. This
is more of a worshipful commentary on what Titus
3 explains. Salvation flows not from merit, but
from mercy. It's not because we did anything.
It's because Jesus did something. He did something
amazing. And our God is full of steadfast love
and mercy. This psalm, as we read it today, I'm
not going to read all of the verses in here.
Again, I want to challenge you. Go read it for
yourself and read the whole 22 verses. It's well
worth your time. Takes about five minutes. Not
going to be super long, but maybe as you read
it. Pause at each phrase because there's something
marvelous about the psalms. I love the worship
that the psalmist gives us here to connect us
to God and who he is. This really explains God's
character well, and it's important for us. This
psalm, as we read it, as you read it today, it
is written to believers who were in a little
bit of trouble of forgetting. That's what it
was written for. It's for those who forget. Those
of us who are forgetful, those of us who have,
that's the danger in our life. We're in danger
of forgetting God. I want to read the first two
verses to begin us off, and I want to talk about
it for just a minute. It says this in Psalm 103,
beginning at verse number one. 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. I want to just stop
there on verse two and say, what are we doing
for getting his benefits? David here is speaking
to his own soul, right? Worship is not always
spontaneous. Sometimes it's intentional. And
I think it needs to be intentional. Sometimes
worship, you know, we talk about worship in church
settings. We talk about worship in different
personal settings. I love to worship the Lord.
I do. Now, it doesn't always look like a song
and hands raised and all that. Sometimes it does.
Sometimes it's in a corporate setting. Sometimes
it's in my car. Sometimes it's in my office.
Sometimes it's while I'm experiencing something
in life personally. I also know that whenever
we intentionally worship the Lord, it's different
than when it's a spontaneous thing. When I'm
in a worship service, I know I can be there and
a truth is proclaimed and it just overwhelms
me. That's happened before. It happens most Sundays,
in fact. Whenever we're singing lyrics to a song
and those lyrics are scripture set to music and
that resonates in my heart with something I read
that week or something I experienced that week,
and I just begin to worship God for who He is.
because his glory has been put on display. You
know, God's glory is just his holiness going
public. You know that, right? I think about this,
and I teach this quite often. I love when God's
holiness, how holy he is, goes public. When his
holiness goes public, everybody freaks out, and
it's his glory. It's what it is. It's perfection,
and you get to see it, and it's right there.
And there's moments where he will bring us into
that. Those spontaneous moments are incredible.
David here, the psalmist, is trying to help us
see. that we need to be intentional. Forget not
all his benefits. Don't forget. Forgetting leads
to a disordered living. You know, if we're not
careful, when our soul forgets who he is and
what he's done, we will not celebrate him. We'll
lose that celebratory heart that we have. I realize
We will never consistently worship a God that
we casually remember. I'm going to say that again.
We will not consistently worship a God we casually
remember. A problem across the globe with Christianity.
I've been to several countries. I've seen a lot
of church services. I've seen church services
in outdoors because they didn't have a building
to meet in because they didn't have the money
or the supplies to build a building. I've been
in some of the nicest buildings in the Western
Hemisphere, some of the nicest over in Rome.
I've seen all kinds of great places, amazing
things. And what I've noticed is if we are casually
remembering this God and all he's done for us,
we're going to find less and less spontaneous
moments, right? I think about what would it look
like if we didn't just remember him on the weekends?
What would it look like if we didn't just remember
him on Sundays whenever we go and gather? Or
as the statistics show, maybe we only worship
once or twice a month. That's considered a regular
churchgoer now. And I'm not pushing that you
have to be in church in order to be a good Christian.
As one of the famous evangelists, Billy Sunday,
said, standing in a garage... doesn't make you
a car, just like being in a church service doesn't
make you a Christian, right? I'm not saying your
church attendance is that. I am saying that whenever
you're around the community of God, if you're
a person of God, you want to be around the community
of God. You want to be around the things of God.
It's like we talked about in yesterday's episode
that the godly things are what you have in common
with God, so be a part of godly things. Christian
community is a godly thing. It's him bringing
us together to encourage, edify, lift up, build
up, and call out and help to lift up, raise up
each of us so that we're better. in our Christian
walk so that we can connect deeper to God, so
we can understand greater things in this world.
I look at this and I think, why are we forgetting?
We don't remember all of his benefits. And then
it begins to list. Listen to what it says in
the next few verses. I'm not going to read the
whole verses. I'm going to read the beginning
of each line. It says this, this God who forgives,
who heals, who redeems, who crowns, who satisfies.
He's good. Like, he's good. What happens? As
soon as we start remembering, you know what we
start remembering? He forgives. It starts with
forgiveness. Do you know why? I think because
we need to be humbled sometimes. And you know
where humility comes from? Forgiveness. We realize
we did something dumb and we had to be forgiven
of it. We fell short. We had to be forgiven.
He forgives and he heals. Who doesn't love someone
who heals? Who doesn't love someone who can help
rend a heart back together? Who doesn't love
something, someone who is able to bring healing?
I don't know anybody in the world who says, no,
I'd rather you just break things and leave. No,
you want to put things back together. Let it
be around someone that wants to heal things,
right? Listen to this. It says, who redeems.
He redeems your life from the pit. So not only
is this the God who forgives, not only is this
the God who heals, it's also the God who redeems
or sets right out of the mess that you were in.
He redeems you. He pulls you out of the pit that
you got yourself into. It's amazing. Then what
does he do? He crowns you. He crowns you with
steadfast love and mercy. I don't know what our
problem is. Honestly, the more I think about
this, we are complete fools. How do we have forgotten?
Here's your challenge today. I'm not even going
to get through the rest of the psalm. Here's
your challenge today. Remember what God has done.
Remember he has forgiven you. That alone should
be enough to rock our world. That alone. Remember
that he didn't just forgive you, though. He also
heals you. It says he heals you from all your
diseases. Those problems that you have, he heals
you from it. He puts back together. He redeems
you. He crowns you. And then the last thing in
verse 5, listen to this. Who satisfies you with
what? With good so that your youth is renewed
like the eagles. He not only has forgiven you
of your dumb stuff, myself included. I read this
today and I'm just thinking, man, how in the
world have I missed out on this? How have I missed
out on the understanding that I'm waiting on
spontaneous worship to happen instead of intentional
worship? Today, maybe intentional worship needs
to be your strife and your goal. Maybe that needs
to be what it is this Sunday. Maybe you're watching
this on Saturday whenever this release. Maybe
you're watching this, I don't know, in 2028.
I'm not. sure. I don't know how the internet
works, really. But maybe, wherever you're watching
this, maybe it's time to not wait on spontaneous
worship and get into intentional worship. How
do you get into intentional worship? Well, you
remember what he's done for you. You start to
remember. I know this. If you are a believer,
if you honestly take 15 minutes today and begin
to write down the things God has done for you,
maybe you just need to remember how far gone
you were. Maybe you just need to remember where
you were headed. Maybe you just need to remember
where you had no hope at all, and he has come
and forgiven you. Why? Because you did something
great? No. We read this this week. While we were
still sinners, Christ died for us. While we were
in the wrong, Christ died for us. And what did
that mean? God demonstrated. He proved his love
that while we were sinners, he died for us. You
want intentional worship? Remember him. Remember
him. Remember him. I am not sitting here today
because I'm worthy. I am sitting here today because
God's faithfully merciful. That's why I'm here
today. I read back through all the text again.
I can't get past the first five verses. So I'm
sorry. You will never consistently worship a
God you casually remember. You won't do it. Stop
casually remembering God. This may be a shorter
episode today, but it's because you need more
time so that you can go today and intentionally
remember he's forgiven you, he's healed you,
he's redeemed you, he's crowned you, and he satisfies
you. That means long term, by the way. How do
I know it's long term? Because it says he satisfies
you with good. Where did that come from? From
the crowning of steadfast love. Read this whole
psalm and read how steadfast love shows up over
and over again. That's all him. We cannot consistently
worship a God we casually remember. Remember
his things today. Let that be a new mercy that
brings a smile to your face.