Forever Young

Psalms 103:1-5 Bless the LORD, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. (2) Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: (3) Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; (4) Who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies; (5) Who satisfieth thy mouth with good things; so that thy youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

This psalm calls upon us to bless the LORD.

“Bless the Lord, O my soul” – We should bless Him individually – not the family through the Father, not the people through the Pastor, not the Church through the Choir.

“All that is within me” – Unreservedly, with every thing that we have. Not just with our lips, not just with a song, but with our lives. In fact, with our souls – with every thing that makes us what we are.

Then we are reminded of some of the reasons to bless the Lord:

“Forgiveth all thine iniquities” – every thing we have ever done wrong, He has forgiven. Not some or most of our iniquities, but all. Every time we fail, we can confident that, if we repent, He forgives us.

“Healeth all thy diseases” – Jesus heals all of our sickness. Whether it is physical, spiritual, emotional, He can and does heal them all. Whether it is the way we expect; whether it is the time we expect, we can also be confident in this. He has and is healing all our diseases.

“Redeemeth thy life from destruction” – He paid the price to redeem us. We on the road to death. We would have been destroyed, nothing is surer. Yet He paid the price to redeem us. He paid the price that we deserved.

“Crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies” – Every day and in every way we can see that He has been good to us. He has extended mercy when we didn’t deserve it. When we are at our most horrible He shows us kindness and love.

“Satisfieth thy mouth with good things” – Not rich things, not many things, not everything I ask for, but all my need fully supplied – and all of it good.

“Thy youth is renewed” – this is what I wanted to talk to you about, eternal youth.

The world is anti-aging gone mad. Youth is worshipped. People do all they can, spend all their money, go through terrible ordeals, just to try and stay young. Botox, face lifts, chin implants, radical diets and exercise, eating strange supplements. They lie abut their age, dye their hair, stick poison in their foreheads, and seem to think that this really makes them 28 when they are 45. The richest person in the world would be the one who discovers the secret to eternal youth – Forever Young.

The Bible doesn’t look at youth the way the world does. Experience and wisdom are valued. A hoary head is a crown of glory (Prov 16:31)

So why then are we told our youth is renewed? Because we want to be forever young. Not like the world, that wants to look young, because that is not renewal. It is just papering over the cracks. We want to actually have eternal youth. Not how we look, but how we are.

What does it mean to be young?

Youth have enthusiasm and excitement. Why? Because they are excited about what is happening. And even more, they are excited about what is going to happen. They have hope for the future. They have their best days still ahead. They are not living on past experiences – they don’t have any. They are not living in the past – they are looking ahead.

The young are still growing. They have not reached the stage where they think they know all there is to know. They realise there is more they can learn, experiences they haven’t yet had, heights they haven’t yet reached, things they haven’t seen. I think that is why they like new songs. We are told to sing new songs, so our praise and worship will always be fresh. Part of being forever young is singing new songs. Appreciating the older ones, and even re-releasing them; giving them a new lease of life.

The young are innocent. They are not tainted by the knowledge of all the evil that abounds. They are not sullied and crippled by their mistakes and failures. They trust. They have faith. If their Father tells them to jump, they know He will catch them. If their Father tells them something, they believe it absolutely, without proviso or condition or qualification.

The young are uninhibited. They express themselves without worrying what they look like, or what other people think of them. They are uninhibited because they have joy. They have joy because they are strong. They are able to face anything because they believe they are strong enough to win. They don’t have fear. We are often amazed at the feats of young people, because they keep on trying something till they can do it. They don’t give up the first time. If that was the case none of us would ever have walked. Whether it is a skateboard or a computer game, they try it and can’t do it, so they try it again, and again, and again, until they succeed.

When we put all of these things together, if we try and describe what it means to be young, we can say it is alive. Young people are so full of life. I have heard it said of someone that they were old before their time. This is because they had lost their aliveness. There are others that are aged in years, and yet they are still young.

To be forever young, to have your youth renewed, is to be full of life. You know, the Bible says, that the Spirit gives life. If you want your youth renewed you need the Spirit of God in you. Jesus said that He is the way, the truth, and the LIFE. The more of Jesus you have, the more life you will have; the more alive you will be.