Yesterday, I wrote that Christianity doesn’t offer “cheap grace”. That’s the idea that someone can claim to be a Christian, spend a lifetime ignoring God and then expect to be saved at death.

Christianity, in fact, involves becoming a disciple. Some might find the consequences of that unappealing compared with the excitement of the world. But we shouldn’t forget all God’s benefits. That’s the view of King David of Israel and Judah, who wrote in Psalm 103:

Praise the Lord, my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.
Praise the Lord, my soul,
and forget not all his benefits –
who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,
who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,
who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

It’s one of the most loved Psalms. The 19th century Baptist Charles Spurgeon described Psalm 103 thus:

As in the lofty Alps some peaks rise above all others so among even the inspired Psalms there are heights of song which overtop the rest. This one hundred and third Psalm has ever seemed to us to be the Monte Rosa of the divine chain of mountains of praise, glowing with a ruddier light than any of the rest.

The psalm is what the late pastor Tim Keller described as a meditation, rather than a prayer. He said:

Notice that David is not speaking directly to God, though he is aware of being in the presence of God. He is talking to himself, to his soul. He is taking truth down into his heart before the face of God…

Meditation is taking the truth down into our hearts until it catches fire there and begins to melt and shape our reactions to God, ourselves, and the world.

More recently, the words of the psalm have been used in a song that’s performed below by David Funk of Bethel Music. The lyrics include:

So I will not forget Your benefits (Your goodness)
Who forgives our sin and who heals our sickness
Who redeems the broken with a crown of compassion
Oh I cannot be silent I can’t help but sing it
I won’t forget

These are huge benefits, provided in the current times or in the afterlife. Forgiveness and redemption from the pit! Healing! Compassion from the creator of the universe!

This is not the narrow transactional economics that we might expect if we go into a restaurant. There we might think the pizza parlour was lacking in generosity with the toppings, but that overall the food quite reasonable for the money.

No, what God is offering is gigantic, eternal value that’s completely unmerited.