Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. Psalm 103:1

Often in our culture we think about what we can get out of a meeting. In this Psalm David instead says 'praise' the Lord. David's priority was putting God first, and the focus should always be God first. Thy will be done, thy kingdom come! The word praise in this verse is Baruk, which is usually translated as bless and it is translated this way in other versions, such as in the KJV. Notice that David says, praise the Lord, 'my soul'. Even though these psalms were sung in a group setting by a congregation, the emphasis is on the individual’s need to praise God. We each must ensure that we do this.

If we jump to the end of the Psalm, we find the same phrase repeated.

Praise the Lord, all his works everywhere in his dominion. Praise the Lord, my soul.

Psalm 103:22

We can clearly see that David is continually stressing that we praise God, both at the beginning and at the end. Much like the way Jesus taught us to pray: our father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name. We are to start by focusing on God and by worshipping his Holy name. Likewise, Jesus taught us to end with 'for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory'. We both start and end prayer with praise. This is commonplace throughout the psalms, in fact the very next psalm starts and ends the same way. We can easily miss this, we frequently go to pray because of a pressing need we have. In verse 2 we read:

Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits.

The praise does not supersede the answers to prayer. The answer to prayer, the benefits God brings, come directly out of praising. Again, in the Lord's prayer we find the same pattern, the line 'give us this day our daily bread' is in the middle of the prayer. The receiving of our needs is sandwiched between praise. David continues:

Who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases. Psalm 103:3

God is able to heal and forgive us of 'all'. There is no sickness in the presence of Jesus. If Jesus touched a leper the leprosy left, Jesus didn't catch it. Likewise, Jesus has removed sin by dying on the cross. These are some of the reasons to praise God, and these things come out of praise. We often feel like we must somehow get God's attention and have him see to our needs. If we would only realise that the answer to prayer is not a power but a person. The context is praising God, and these benefits come from a person who is praising. When we are before Jesus, with Jesus, his very closeness ‘is’ the answer to prayer that we so desperately need.

Today we must ensure that we praise Jesus and put Him first.

- Adapted from Pastor Dave's Jones sermon 16/10/24