Psalms 116:12, ‘What shall I render to the Lord For all His benefits toward me?’
God had led us in a wonderful way in the past. He gave us His divine protection to us. Thank God for bringing us together in good health. We worship Him, Praise Him, we give thanks to Him. Our God is loving and compassionate God. We went through difficult times and many situations but God is reminding us that, ‘Did I ever let you down, even once?’ God will never let us down. He will never leave us nor forsake us. He is our faithful God. It is God’s mercy and blessing that we are still alive. Let us not take it lightly.
The Psalmist could experience God’s love and His compassion. He could experience God’s divine protection over him.
V1, ‘I love the Lord, because He hears My voice and my supplications.’ V5, ‘Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; Yes, our God is compassionate.’ V8, ‘For You have rescued my soul from death, My eyes from tears, My feet from stumbling.’
Having experienced all this from the Lord, the Psalmist is asking in
V12, ‘What shall I render to the Lord For all His benefits toward me?’
Let us ask ourselves having experienced God’s love, mercies, compassions, His faithfulness toward us, what shall we render to our Lord?
Psalms 103:2, ‘Bless the Lord, O my soul, And forget none of His benefits;’
In Old covenant, people offered sacrifices and offerings, in order to please God. God is not asking for the offerings now, in the new covenant. God had prepared one thing for us. A body, to be a living and holy sacrifice.
Hebrews 10:5, ‘Therefore, when He comes into the world, He says, “Sacrifice and offering You have not desired, But a body You have prepared for Me;’
V8, ‘After saying above, “Sacrifices and offerings and whole burnt offerings and sacrifices for sin You have not desired, nor have You taken pleasure in them” (which are offered according to the Law), 9 then He said, “Behold, I have come to do Your will.” He takes away the first in order to establish the second.’
The Holy Spirit is saying, ‘Sacrifice and offering You have not desired, But a body You have prepared for Me’,
God has given us a body; how do we live in this body? God wants us to present our body as a living and holy sacrifice, which is a pleasing aroma to our God.
Romans 12:1, ‘Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship’
By all His mercies, considering all His mercies, loving kindness, faithfulness and all the blessings, Paul is saying, ‘I urge you brethren, present your bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, pleasing to God; this is a spiritual worship, for the Lord. Our Praise and thanksgiving should lead us to the next level of spiritual worship, where we offer our bodies as a living and holy sacrifice, pleasing to God.
We will render our bodies as a pleasing aroma to our God, for all the benefits toward us.
1 Corinthians 6:13, ‘Food is for the stomach and the stomach is for food, but God will do away with both of them. Yet the body is not for immorality, but for the Lord, and the Lord is for the body.’
Our body is for our Lord, a pleasing aroma to our God. Every part of our body, our tongue – the words need to be pleasing to our Lord. Our eyes, all our body parts needs to be pleasing to our Lord. Let us examine ourselves.
Ephesians 5:2, ‘and walk in love, just as Christ also loved you and gave Himself up for us, an offering and a sacrifice to God as a fragrant aroma.’
Lord Jesus lived like this, as a pleasing aroma to God. God wants us to live like Him.
John 8:29, ‘And He who sent Me is with Me; He has not left Me alone, for I always do the things that are pleasing to Him.”
God has not left us alone because of His mercies and compassion. Let us always do the things which are pleasing to our God. When we live like this, God will give us His testimony in our spirit that,
Matthew 3:17, ‘and behold, a voice out of the heavens said, “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well-pleased.”
This is the testimony that we need to hear from the Lord, every day in our lives.
We know about Cain and Abel – The Lord was pleased with Abel and his offering. The priority is first our life and then our offering. Present our bodies as a holy sacrifice, which is acceptable, pleasing to our Lord. How is our life? Our lives, words, actions, attitudes – are they pleasing to our God or are they grieving to our Lord? Let us always have the desire to have this testimony from our Lord, that we are pleasing to Him. Even before Jesus started His ministry, the Lord gave this testimony that He is well pleased with His life. Our lives also should be a pleasing aroma to our God.
Psalms 19:14, ‘Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart Be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my rock and my Redeemer’
Do we have a tongue of disciple? ‘Our thoughts about others and the meditation of our hearts’ – are they pleasing to our Lord? Let us examine ourselves.
Enoch, a wonderful man from the Old Testament, was pleasing to God.
Genesis 5:22, ‘Then Enoch walked with God three hundred years after he became the father of Methuselah, and he had other sons and daughters’.
V24, ‘Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him.’
Enoch walked with God. He was pleasing to God.
Hebrews 11:5, ‘By faith Enoch was taken up so that he would not see death; and he was not found because God took him up; for he obtained the witness that before his being taken up he was pleasing to God’.
We have a warning from the Israelites.
1 Corinthians 10:5, ‘Nevertheless, with most of them God was not well-pleased; for they were laid low in the wilderness.’
God was not well-pleased with most of them. Their lives were not pleasing to the Lord as they were murmuring, complaining, having unbelief, etc.
Romans 8:8, ‘and those who are in the flesh cannot please God.’
We should not be controlled by the flesh. We need to walk in the Spirit. The deeds of the flesh (Galatians 5), we need to put them to death, to please God. Let us submit ourselves to God.
Apostle Paul also had a great desire in his heart that whether he lives or dies, he wants to please God. This was his ambition in his life. This should be our ambition too, to be pleasing aroma to God.
2 Corinthians 5:9, ‘Therefore we also have as our ambition, whether at home or absent, to be pleasing to Him.’ V10, ‘For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may be recompensed for his deeds in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad.’ V11, ‘Therefore, knowing the fear of the Lord, we persuade men, but we are made manifest to God; and I hope that we are made manifest also in your consciences.’
Let us always do the things that are pleasing to our Lord. He will never leave us alone. When we have this desire to please God, God will help us. The Holy Spirit will fulfill this in our lives. Let us die to our ‘self’, only then, the pleasing aroma is released from our Lives. Let our lives be pleasing aroma to our God.
May God bless us.
