Good Morning, Pastor John,
While reading Psalm 103 this morning a new thought came to me. 103:1 “Bless the LORD, O my soul! And all that is within me, bless his holy name”. I have said and prayed, “Bless the LORD!” many times. But as I now know, we have nothing of benefit to God. How can we bless the LORD? I think I know what it means when the Lord blesses us, whether it be receiving the holy Ghost, being healed, or some burden lifted. But how can I bless the LORD? But as it is in the Bible several times, I have to believe that it is something possible and good to do. Still, I don’t like the fact I have been praying something for years (“Bless the Lord”) and don’t understand what I have been saying. Can you help me understand what seems to be simple, but is confounding me this morning?
I also read in Proverbs 8 where Jesus was there before heaven and earth, even before eternity itself. That has been on my mind ever since. “Before eternity” doesn’t seem possible, but then, what do I know? Does this mean that God, through Jesus, made time? It seems to imply there was no time before this, and will not be, once the Final Judgment is made. There’s another verse where it says a 1000 years is as a day to God. I have heard you say eternity is not the same to God, but it didn’t think that meant there was no time. It seems to imply that God is above or outside of time even now.
Your thoughts and insights are greatly appreciated!
Love,
Mark Whelan
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Hi Mark.
I am happy to see that your mind is on these things. As for your first question, we bless God by praising Him with an upright heart. That is basically what “bless” means in that context. We cannot bless God by improving His situation, as He does ours. But we can praise Him.
As for your second question, there is a mystery to eternity that is just beyond us. It does no good to analyze eternity, though we all have wondered about it at times. Here is our translation of Proverbs 8:22–23, where the Son is speaking of his existence with the Father before creation: “The LORD created me the beginning of His way, the first of His works. I was formed before eternity, before the beginning, before earth existed.” We debated the phrase, “before eternity”, since, as you said, that seems impossible. But in the end, we decided to leave it because that is what the Hebrew of that verse says, and we like the mystery of that phrase, and it accurately reflects the wonder of eternity, from our perspective.
I hope that helps.
Pastor John