A Further Note...
Just one last note; and I’m not sure how far we can press of this; but we do want to note that this "blessedness" is a part of God’s character, and does not come as a result of his deeds. Remember that we are created in God’s image. Many things that are true of us were true of God first. Men do as their nature directs them to do. The Bible says "Outl of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks". What man say and do is the result of and is prompted by what they are. The same is true of God. All that God does, and has done, that is praise-worthy He does because He is, by His very nature, praise-worthy. God IS blessed!
Men may do praise-worthy things; but man can never be "blessed" in and of themselves. Just as an aside, keep in mind that we are not speaking of the praise of other men. We’re speaking of praise as God would define it and receive it.
This first phrase in verse three is really a wonderful demonstration of what praise is to be. We should notice a couple things. First, we should note that true praise is entirely God-centered. True praise benefits man and only incidentally. For praise to be as God desires it must be centered on one of two things. Either it must focus on Who God is, or it must focus on what God has done. That is what we see in this verse. Earlier we considered the idea of that the " blessedness" spoke about here is a blessedness intrinsic to God’s nature, and not so much based on what he has done. Praise for what God has done is added later in this verse, as we will see.
Secondly, we should note that virtually every reference to praise for God in the Bible is aimed at God the Father. This is not because either the Lord Jesus or the Holy Spirit are not worthy of praise. They both most certainly are worthy of that praise. However, the Scripture is quite clear in indicating that both the Son and the Spirit desire all praise be directed to the Father. Our Lord, when he walked the earth, was constantly directing men’s attention and praise to the Heavenly Father. The Spirit, we are told, comes not to speak of himself of Christ. This is not to say that any expression of praise or worship aimed at Jesus Christ or God’s Holy Spirit is sinful or wrong. However, we do need to recognize that the pattern, and really, the direct teaching of the New Testament is that praise and worship belong to the Father.