The Kingdom Within

UV 779/10,000 The Kingdom of God within us Praise the Lord, O my soul and all that is within me, bless His holy name. Psalm 103 v 1 It is not natural for man to praise the Lord. It takes an effort to recognize the need to acknowledge, thank and praise God. The Psalmist commanded or directed his soul to praise the Lord. From this uni-verse, I derived the idea of commanding oneself and not just making suggestions to oneself. We have authority over our souls and we need to take charge of ourselves. The onus is on us. It is a deep longing, in fact the deepest, of the human soul to worship the Creator and Redeemer. So we praise the Lord not as if it is needed by Him or out of a sense of obligation but as it is our need to worship Him. Our flesh nature denies the need. Our minds deny the need but our soul cries out for it. The Greek root of the word “bless” means to be lifted up. So we lift up the name of the Lord in our lives when we bless Him. Another nuance of the root word means “ to be envied”. So when we bless the Lord, we in turn will be blessed much more or in other words, we will be envied by others who are not so blessed. Oliver Wendell Holmes said that “ what lies ahead of us and what lies behind us is insignificant in comparison with what lies within us.” What lies within us are our thoughts, emotions, hopes, desires, imagination, visions, dreams, abilities, plans, potential, memories, expectations, attitudes, our expression, wisdom, knowledge and understanding. We need to bless the name of the Lord with all of these prime factors of our lives. We need to get rid of the things that do not glorify God in our lives for undirected our thoughts can become worries that rob us of our peace, our emotions can be driven by anger, hatred and fear, our desires can become lust and lead us to covet, our imagination can become delusions, our visions can become illusions, our dreams can become nightmares, our abilities and talents can remain latent, our plans unfulfilled and frustrating, our potential unutilised, our memories can produce guilt, our expressions can be trite and negative, our wisdom and knowledge can remain purely worldly. When we commit all that is within us to the Lord, He blesses all the prime factors of life and make them work together to fulfil His purpose for our lives. Invoking His holy name is sufficient to bless all of our lives, all of our spirits, minds and bodies for as Jehovah Shalom, He blesses us with peace, prosperity and wholeness, as Jehovah Nisi He gives us victory, as Jehovah El Shaddai He protects us, as Jehovah Jireh He provides graciously for us, as Jehovah Rohi, He guides and shepherds us,as Jehovah Rapha He heals us. When we remember these holy names of the Lord, we bless Him and He in turn reciprocates by blessing our souls, our spirits, minds and bodies, our relationships, our hopes, our dreams, our expressions, our abilities. The power and grace to bless as well as to curse is shared by the Lord with only mankind of all His creatures. The power to curse is to be used sparingly as Jesus did. The power to bless is to be used liberally. Prateep V Philip