Bless The Lord Oh My Soul - 40 Pack

This is a true story of Redemption - As good as God is, my father was just the opposite, and on his way to a sinner’s grave in hell.
 
Bless the Lord, Oh My Soul
 
While sitting in church one Sunday morning, we sang the song “10,000 Reasons,” that contained the words “Bless the Lord, Oh My Soul.” I thought to myself how blessed I and my family were to know the true meaning of that song, and how blessed we really were, knowing that someday we would spend eternity in heaven with the One that gave His life that we might have eternal life. Jesus said, “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6)
 
While thinking back on my past, I thought of my father. As good as God is, my father was just the opposite, and hopelessly lost in sin. He was headed straight for a sinner's grave in hell (Luke 16:19-31). I had prayed for thirteen years for my father to trust Jesus to forgive his sins and write his name down in the Lamb's Book of Life (Revelation 20:12-15).
 
One day we received the news that my father had been diagnosed with lung cancer, and that he had very short time to live. My brother-in-law visited my father in the hospital and preached Jesus to him; and that day, heaven rejoiced (Luke 15:7) as my father said “Yes” to Jesus. I went to visit my father in the hospital, and the news came that he had only two weeks left on this earth. With tears falling from his eyes he said, “The Lord's will be done” (referring to the news he had just been given). Two years later, we held services for my father. Yes, two years later! My father had been given time by the God of mercy to make up to my mother and to his family for the hellish life he had put them through.
 
The Word of God says that one without Christ is dead in their trespasses and sins, and they are blind to the things of God (Ephesians 2:1-3, 2 Corinthians 4:4).
 
Whether some believe it or not, God is good all the time! My mother raised eleven children and was a faithful wife to my father, fulfilling his every wish even in the times when it was not in her best interest. My mother attended a church that held Mass (church service) in Latin, just as I did as a child. She was not allowed to visit other churches. She was told that it was a sin against God.
 
I am so glad that our God is omniscient (all knowing). He knows the longing of one's heart. At the age of sixteen, my mother was visited by someone from a local church and she invited Jesus to be the Lord of her life, Hallelujah! She then went back to her church to tell of her new found faith, and was told not to tell anyone, and that it was not right to do so. Because of the wrong advice given to my mother, we never had the opportunity to hear the good news of a risen Savior in our home.
 
1 John 5:11 says, “And this is the testimony: that God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son.”
 
And because of the wrong advice, I believe my mother never received the blessing of fulfilling the Great Commission (Mathew 28:18-20), and she never had the joy of leading someone to Christ. Proverbs 11:30 states that “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and he who wins souls is wise.”
 
The one truth about the Word of God, is that it is unstoppable, and will live throughout eternity. Psalm 119:89 declares, “Forever, O LORD, Your word is settled in heaven.”
 
God's Word is also a living word with power. Hebrews 4:12 pronounces, “For the word of God is living and powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit, and of joints and marrow, and is a discerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart.”
 
In the Gospel of Luke, Jesus tells a parable (a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson):
Also He (Jesus) spoke this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and despised others: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee (a strict religious sect, a self-righteous person, a hypocrite) and the other a tax collector (in Jesus' day, the tax collector was branded as unfaithful and unjust, an extortionist). The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other men - extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I possess.’ And the tax collector, standing afar off, would not so much as raise his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified (just as if he had never sinned) rather than the other; for everyone who exalts himself will be humbled (lowered), and he who humbles himself will be exalted (raised).” (Luke 16:9-14)
 
Aren't you glad that God looks at the heart of man and not at our possessions, and that He will accept all those who will, by faith, trust in His finished work on Calvary's cross.
 
Ephesians 2:8-9 emphatically states, “For by grace (God's unmerited favor) you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast.”
 
As I think of my own salvation experience, I believe I know how that tax collector felt when the love of God overwhelmed his lost soul. I can see the tears of joy swelling up in his eyes, and I can feel his heart beating with excitement to tell someone of his new found love. And I can hear the beautiful words of joy being sung, “Bless the Lord, oh my soul. Oh my soul, bless His holy name. Sing like never before, oh my soul. Bless His holy name.”
 
How about you? Do you see yourself as the Pharisee, working out your own righteousness? Romans 3:10 says, “There is none righteous, no, not one.”
 
Or, do you see yourself as the tax collector who saw himself as a sinner and called out to Jesus to save his soul? Romans 10:13 gives us great hope and assurance when it states, for “whoever calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.”
 
And Psalm 119:175 says, “Let my soul live, and it shall praise You (God).”
 
Your fellow laborer in Christ,
B.V. Monjarez, B.R.E.