Beneficial grace and psalm 103

1 Praise the Lord, my soul; all my inmost being, praise his holy name. 2 Praise the Lord, my soul, and forget not all his benefits— 3 who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases, 4 who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, 5 who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s. 6 The Lord works righteousness and justice for all the oppressed.

7 He made known his ways to Moses, his deeds to the people of Israel: 8 The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. 9 He will not always accuse, nor will he harbor his anger forever; 10 he does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities. 11 For as high as the heavens are above the earth, so great is his love for those who fear him; 12 as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.

13 As a father has compassion on his children, so the Lord has compassion on those who fear him; 14 for he knows how we are formed, he remembers that we are dust. 15 The life of mortals is like grass, they flourish like a flower of the field; 16 the wind blows over it and it is gone, and its place remembers it no more. 17 But from everlasting to everlasting the Lord’s love is with those who fear him, and his righteousness with their children’s children — 18 with those who keep his covenant and remember to obey his precepts.

19 The Lord has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.

20 Praise the Lord, you his angels, you mighty ones who do his bidding, who obey his word. 21 Praise the Lord, all his heavenly hosts, you his servants who do his will. 22 Praise the Lord, all his works everywhere in his dominion.

Praise the Lord, my soul.

This psalm is seemingly addressed to the individuals that already have some familiarity with the workings of the Holy Spirit and the benefits of grace including the grace of healing, the graces of bounty or prosperity, and the grace of forgiveness.

However it is a constant battle to get and stay familiar with the workings of the Holy Spirit and the mysterious ways of the Holy Spirit.

Even in human terms, familiarity does count for things. If a professor gives a great lecture and the student says after class,” wow, that was an awesome lecture,” the professor might think how about the last 4, weren’t they pretty good as well.

And this also goes to prospective students signing up for this course and this professor in the first place, if indeed he or she is known for giving excellent lectures this is something that the buyer of the course wants to know.

Or if you tell your girlfriend she has a great personality today, she might wonder about what you thought about her yesterday, as being not as great.

Or if a baseball player hits a titan home run, and the accolades are such that people are impressed beyond belief, the player might say, “ What, I hit two like that last week.”

And the manager filling out the lineup card wants to be familiar with this great power and put this batter at the appropriate place in the lineup to highlight the power.

So a degree of familiarity does count even as much will remain unfamiliar.

With regards to healing and forgiveness, there is a haziness that will remain.

People can be in need of healing in so many ways, the healing of the spirit, emotions, will and intention as well as physical healing and with regards to the need for physical healing even with increasing medical knowledge and the good help and aid of physicians there are a lot of unknowns out there as to what is wrong and why.

There is almost no way anyone can say that they don’t need healing in some manner and needs can arise suddenly even if all has been going well.

And the need for healing may not be seen as a need for healing and this itself is a problem but as you walk with the Spirit, you will receive the benefits that you don’t quite know you need or you might have only a vague idea of needing within the healing graces given.

With regards to sin and possible sin, some sins are more obvious but to what degree they are offenses is less obvious and sin also goes into gray areas such attitude and treatment of others in the moment. It you are acting cross with the waiter, who has a tough job to start with because the soup isn’t warm enough, this can be an offense considered a sin. It isn’t exactly the same as robbing everyone in sight but it still might be a sin in the eyes of the Holy Spirit and it could require confession and repentance towards forgiveness.

You can ask for general forgiveness that includes the forgiveness of hidden sins, or less obvious sins as there is evidence in the experience of some that the grace of forgiveness needed at times before a healing such as a physical healing will actually take place, so it is possible that also that forgiveness is needed before the graces for added prosperity are given as well.

New and added graces may bring us into unfamiliar territory and further assistance is needed from the Holy Spirit in deepening and broadening insights as to how to proceed with these graces, graces that nonetheless should reveal as beneficial. If there is a lack of clarity as to what is going on, the idea is to ask for insights as to what the beneficial aspects are, as the benefits might not be at first obvious. There is the blessing in disguise and sometimes what seems to be a hindrance is actually operating as a help.

In the epistle of Peter, he admonishes some of the people he is writing to as having not treated their women companions in a kind way and this was being cited as the reason for their prayers being hindered. They needed to change their behavior and ask for forgiveness for what they had done before some other answers and benefits would be coming their way.

But from the perspective of the person praying and acting within the graces given in the ongoing walk with the Spirit, there is the call to become and remain familiar and more familiar with the ongoing workings of the Spirit, in that the prior dealings of the Spirit should add to an increasing and developing familiar map for you and you work with what you know as you proceed into unknowns. What the Spirit has communicated to you previously is a well you can possibly tap again as prior communications of grace may still have indications for you and current applicability to a degree for you.

If there were prior communications from the Holy Spirit that you should be involved with more physical exercise or that you should swim, that prior communication might have indications for doing this well into the future and it is important to keep a mental log of what has been communicated to you previously in the manner of grace and at least keep a trace of the outlines of these prior communications even as some of the specifics might change, there could be a general theme that you can glean and keep fresh as well.

If you know less, you can still proceed but you can apply for graces and even massive graces in the manner of intercession based on the premises given in this psalm, that the benefits of the Lord for you and others arise out of a love that towers to the heavens which is a whole lot of love and that means a whole lot of benefits. As you apply for additional graces in prayer, keep in mind the graces that are already here and see them as indicators of possible roads into the future while at the same time remaining open to the mysterious breezes of Holy Spirit.

The Gospel of John 3.8 says, “the wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with everyone born of the Spirit."

There is a lot of mystery involved but whatever is happening should be beneficial.

In the parable of the talents, the person who faltered was the person given just one talent at the outset, who seemed in the way he proceeded to be unfamiliar with the idea that his master wanted him to proceed in using this talent beneficially and instead basically buried the talent; without actually activating it for fear of losing the talent and the moral is to become in some ways active among and within the graces given and use this graces advantageously.

Maybe with just the one talent he felt he had a lot to lose, where is he had an excess of talents, losing one talent would not have left him with zero, but there are a couple of morals here, you can take the risk, of going to zero and losing everything under the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Luke 19.40 says, “ I tell you," he replied, "if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out."

In other words even if things totally falter, full grace and benefits can see arise from absolute zero, which is of course encouraging as at times things seem to tank all the way to nothing in some endeavors which had high hopes at first.

He may have been felt unworthy seeing he got the lesser amount in terms of talent and figuring he was already behind at the starting line, he didn’t proceed at all when he should have went ahead on the race with the one talent he did have and indeed you can step forward from the starting line at the race even if you don’t start the race as the favorite and you can still run a good race finished last, you are still ahead of those who staying home on the couch.

Even the person who got the 3 talents might have looked at the one who got 5 and did a bit of wondering but the more of the story is go ahead with what the Lord gives you and he may add to it, compound it and work with it and new and mysterious ways and don’t just count the talents at the starting line either, it might total to a different amount later on as it did in the parable of the talents and as it says in this psalm there will be benefits including healing, including bounty or prosperity and it could accrue in new and unknown ways so don’t just expect say prosperity to accrue in uniform fashion, if is appearing out the bountiful graces of the Lord, two talents can be turned into 4 or 20 talents, who knows?

In the Exodus account, the Israelites ran into all sorts of trouble later on even after freed and the primary cause cited with the lack of conferencing., consulting, confidence and keen remembering of the already given tremendous demonstrations of grace in the form of timed miracles, signs and wonders that had followed them under Moses command in the flight from Egypt and while wrestling with the initial decrees of the hardened Pharaoh who would not relent at first and let them go free.

These wonders where not only wonders out there per se, but wonders given for the personal benefit of those who did benefit from them and not only should the wonders themselves have been upheld in their thinking but also the beneficial aspects of the wonders as applied to them personally.

Pharaoh and his hardened outlook, was the personification of the obstacles to grace but the graces, wonders, and miracles just compounded in response to this obstacle, and if the Lord really wants you to get through and around an obstacle, the graces to this may be compounded.

As long as the obstacle refused passage, grace come in even stronger and with more force and will.

Grace is the ally that should be sided with and stayed with and not strayed from by belittling the grace itself and complaining, but you can say that you believe you are still facing obstacles and you can’t get by them if you really believe this is the case and see what the Lord comes back. If there are several roadblocks to getting to the beach, maybe I can’t go to the beach and this needs to be discussed and discerned as to whether the graces fore the exclusion of the obstacle will in fact appear.

But some of the Exodus group fell into the trap of disbelief and part of this was do to lack of pondering and staying familiar with the tracings of grace and the appearances of grace and what the prior graces where in fact indicating and pointing towards.

If you really believe that the Lord set you on a path and now you cannot proceed on this path, you can discuss this and tell him why you believe you can’t proceed and why there needs to be additional allowances of grace for this.

If many doors are a closing, then this might be pointing towards highlighting what you can still do, which is you can still pray. I don’t need to be rich, famous, politically powerful, well heeled in any way to pray.

For sure, there were failings on the part of some with pondering and seeing the wonders of the Exodus story its proper light and meaning.

The positive side of this story is that if the Lord does it one time, we can have expectations and forward vision towards more and more of the same or similar type benefits and to not expect more is to start with is inaccurate, and on the wrong line of thinking. If the Lord is thinking this type of wonder, these miracles then you should start thinking these wonders and these miracles and get your thinking straight.

Why not think a bit more with this great miracle, sit with it a while.

If the Lord is sending an angel this time, then ask for an angel next time. The Lord is talking benefits in this psalm, so let’s talk about benefits and more benefits.

You can really proceed in talking about benefits in prayer with the Lord because it is the wrong thing to do if you don’t do this. The Exodus story shows that everybody involved with the benefits should have been basking in the benefits and trusting the benefits.

Grace is the ally that should be sided with and stayed with and not strayed from by belittling the grace itself and complaining.

They should have honed in on what was or should have been already familiar and kept the remembrance of these wonders as fresh and familiar and not doing that was a type of belittlement of these miracles that manifested in lack of confidence and trust and hope and belief in benefits which should arise out of the manifest presence of grace and at the least believing that this beneficial grace isn't going to drop off but yes, it will continue and the answer to the general question of grace and the benefits of graces sought will be yes.

Troubles will arise, and the need for varied graces will arise including the often greatly needed graces of healing and this often becomes an inescapable need, otherwise the real difficulties, at home problems and illness may remain, continue to fester and the adversities involved will upset the apple cart, and you want to cling to grace and the benefits of grace, not the problem but the grace. In the context of prayer, there according to this psalm is lots of room for lots of graces, and the prayer closet is in reality a roomy mansion to start with and what you hear in the prayer closet can be the beginnings of grace and unfolding graces for you and others.

Sins can be forgiven and cleared as far away as from East to West, opening up new pathways to new graces with this new clearing.

The demonstrated compassion, mercy, kindness of the Lord’s graces tower to the heavens. And any answer has a towering presence, you aren’t just squeezing in a hoped for grace and if the Lord is going to set this table he is going to set the table with the overflowing cup on the table so you can both see the appearance of grace and experience its abundance, the table is not the heavens but right here and now on the earth.

Grace when and where it appears will tend to have an abundance, if the Lord really wants you to cross the seas, he will give you a fleet of boats if need be to do this.

Part of the picture with this is showing that the Lord’s graces can be fully comprehensive and total towards the intentions of the graces given, however small and also however great and lofty in its expectations and provisional graces aren’t going to be less than, if anything is will be the cup spilling over as in psalm 23. And even the appearance of seeming lack is taken away as is actual lack.

The Lord can for example provide graces for years on end for something he wishes for you to do and to cross the fingers and vaguely hope that initial graces will not taper off is not accurate as graces given can handle shorter time lines and longer times lines such as years ahead and decades ahead, and don’t assume dividing lines such as I got this benefit but how long is it going to last really?

For individual issues and concerns, you might have been healed already in one area, say a creaking knee and you can cite this prior healing with thanksgiving as you now proceed with a request to the Lord for healing for a developing hearing problem and it is helpful to remember and ponder the prior healing that you are already familiar with, and indeed you are or should be familiar with the prior healing from the Lord as also meaning and indicating the Lord will heal you for other things if and when the need will arise for other healings.

When you read of the healing accounts in the gospel, keep in mind that this benefit is also merited to you in particular and for what you need healing for.

Or the Lord has healed a hearing problem for you in prior times and now you have eyesight problems and as you address the Lord for the beneficial graces of healing for the eyesight issues remember with thanksgiving that he healed your hearing problem in the past, and this can help with the confidence, trust and hope in this new prayer for a similar type healing.

Or you can be familiar with stories in the scriptures such as in the gospels where there were public healings for lepers, a disease that in that time had no available cure from the medical community thereby constituting a life sentence to illness as far as we know from history and then in prayer cite this scriptural example as familiar in asking for healing for either yourself or others for a medical concern that doesn’t have all that much recourse in present day from doctors in terms of an ultimate cure, as you forget not his already known benefits, already delivered healing of hopeless cases within the gospel accounts of healing and those applications of grace is an application that is valid to this date and beyond this date.

This very public healing for the lepers wasn’t grace in the dark but the healing and the benefits of the healing took place in the light of day and they could then go on and potentially live full and normal lives after being captured in the throes of this dark illness.

When we go to the store, there are items which say sell by this date. But graces given don’t always have limitations that we find in other areas, the graces go beyond in many cases.

Or say interceding for what is seemingly a massive relatively unsolvable problem with regards to healing such as the high incidence of the AIDS virus in some nations of Africa, you can as you pray and intercede for the healing graces to flood in those areas using the example of the healing of the lepers in the scriptures as having similar connotations and the backdrop to this intercessory prayer is always the mercy and kindness of the Lord towering to the heavens meaning the largess of it is enough to handle this seemingly insurmountable problem as seen from the perspective of the natural eye.

Verse 11 is key as the love of the Lord for even one individual towers to the heavens and this mercy, kindness and love is so great the that the graces can and will be more than enough for any request however seemingly unbelievable, and tapping the wells of grace is not tapping on a limited reserve that might suddenly be depleted after reaching a certain saturation point.

It is not like it is a tiny portion of compassionate and merciful grace, into which headwinds you are praying, as it mentions in the latest verses of this psalm the Lord is coming back with great angels and this is not a small response.

The Lord can give mighty portions and divide mighty portions in mighty ways, dividing the portions across lands and across time and space for you personally and for those out there.

With regards to sin, remember the biblical examples, the gospel examples of forgiveness and who indeed shall cast the first stone either in that just about everybody is subject to what are often quite similar sins so don't feel like you are the only one with this weakness.

And you can cite those examples and prior examples of your own familiarity with forgiveness in seeking this beneficial grace and hope of forgiveness yet again for either yourself or others.

In the last section of this psalm, it does refer to the Lord remembering our fragile state and the beneficial appearances and existence of angels and heavenly beings.

As fragile as we are and can be, the benefits are still delivered, the angels are still appearing to help and prayer is still be answered with towering benefits.

If you have been visited, assisted and helped by an angel in the past, believe that this will happen again and again as you become more and more familiar with this beneficial grace and how and where an angel will appear to you next is a bit unfamiliar it isn't totally unfamiliar and totally unexpected.

Don't think of the prior angelic visitation as so wondrous that you don't want to ponder it, think about it, and dwell on it a bit because it is unfamiliar or supposed to be unfamiliar.

The benefits are there to get familiar with and you the invitation is to immerse in the benefits, not to just see them as the one and only ray of light you are going to get in the manifest darkness.

You can specifically ask for angels for specific types of help and an example of where and when you might want this is traveling and in having concerns around being in an unfamiliar country, city or land, and you have a need for the accompaniment of angels, but you can inject the request for the help of an angel for just about anything you could request in prayer.

Some examples of the Bible where the Lord sent angels to individuals include when Hagar was fleeing the wrath of Sarah into the very throes of the desert in the book of Genesis, Elijah when he was in flight on unfamiliar terrain and exhausted to the point of his possible demise where an angel met him right then and there, and Daniel in the lions den who had an angel bring him lost, all examples of the Lord remembering the fragile state of individuals and the mounting inability to deal with contending circumstances and then intervening to send powerful heavenly beings to help out.

It might seem nearly impossible to be relieved of the guilt and consequences of this sin but the love and graces of the Lord towers to the heavens in verse 11 and you can be relieved of this sin in ways previously unimaginable and the prisoner to sin can be freed.

With regards to prosperity, it may seem like something beyond belief to have a few more dollars in your pocket but as it says in verse 11 the love and corresponding graces for you tower to the heavens and the graces of prosperity can appear with majestic overtones.

You may be thinking one ipad and the Lord can provide hundreds if need be. if he wants you doing something involving the use of ipads.

With regards to all forms of bounty and prosperity, which many people want and prefer, it is ultimately arising from the Lord’s beneficial graces and it is good to remind yourself of times where and when the Lord has already given doses of prosperity and keep that in front of you and in remembrance when praying for matters that come into the realms of prosperity and if you can’t cite your own examples cite the examples in the scriptures that are familiar such as the case of the unbelievable prosperity experienced by Solomon who didn’t even ask for it, his request was for wisdom only although he did not specifically put exclusions on his request and the Lord added in prosperity in response to this request for wisdom which pleased him so ultimately Solomon’s prosperity was still the result of answered prayer but in indirect fashion as the Lord widened the scope of the request for wisdom to include more than just wisdom as the retort to the request and this goes to the verse in this psalm which refers to the towering attribute of the Lord’s kindness which takes further flight than the request being addressed.

The Lord’s answer can tower over your puny request and take it to greater heights in terms of graces expounded and brought forth from what was initially a pecuniary prayer request, expanding upon in and with grace.

This goes back to the parable of the talents, the Lord gave Solomon initial graces and talent for things yet increased these graces in mysterious ways and in ways beyond what was asked for and if you start the race with the Holy Spirit it may be more than just what you were contemplating at the outset and benefits increase and accrue in ways beyond the initial request and initial outlay of grace.

Graces aren't applying or unfolding necessarily in a linear path, graces can be exponential and increased upon.

Lots of stuff ultimately has the ring of unfamiliarity to a degree but certainly it is for the better and the best to get familiar and more familiar with the always beneficial graces of healing, forgivingness and prosperity, and while you can't predict what the Lord will do, the unfolding itself will headline under graces for healing, forgiveness and prosperity even though you don't know precisely how.

Seek to and become more and more familiar with the beneficial graces given and keep a mental if not written log of the graces already given as you seek their extension of grace and increase in grace manifold ways.

Verses 4 and 5 in this psalm say,

4 who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, 5 who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s

You can also take hints from this passage that the Lord isn’t going to topple you over with grace and give you more than you can handle even with the good things.

Because your youth is being renewed like the eagles with the good things which brings forth the idea of freshness, sustainability, do ability and ground that you can actually walk on with relative ease.

This doesn’t mean you will not be mountain climbing is this is your thing, but it means that what you are doing will enhance youth, and the graces will enhance and not compromise your youth and well being.

It is not just the gold that glitters but the solid gold, through and through grace and portions of grace,

Verse 4 shows that the redeeming qualities of the grace, not only get your through the troubles but through with crowing glory out of the love and compassion of the Lord made manifest for you personally,

The answer of grace has what should appear as crowning elements, the grace and the ways of grace come forth in kingly fashion in its designs and effects.

This is why it is important at times to look for and be aware of the spectacular items and appearances of graces, and graces which appear with kingly crowning elements.

As the Lord deals with you, your personal desires are not mangled up in all that is out there, but kept fresh, intact and in view within the workings of grace that can and will have elements that satisfy what you really want and really desire, even those things you are not verbalizing that well.

This is why both prayer and meditation before the Lord is essential and the communications will go beyond words at times into reaching the desires of the heart with understanding that the ultimate cause and arrival of grace is a crowning of the personal relationship between you and the Lord.

Related Articles - psalms, prayer, peace, prosperity, grace,

Email this Article to a Friend! Receive Articles like this one direct to your email box! Subscribe for free today!