It is a great joy for people to celebrate special occasions in their life. People celebrates birthday, wedding, graduation, new job, promotion, new baby, house warming, new appointment, many more. Do you know that God himself delights in celebration. In the book of exodus 12:14 God gave instruction to the people of Israel to celebrate in his honour because of the great things he has done in their life.
Celebrating God should be a way of expressing our appreciation for what God has done for us. God sent his only begotten son, our Lord Jesus Christ to take away our sins and because of Jesus, we have access to the father (john 14- 6). He has made a way for us to have a Father-Child relationship with God and for this reason, we have the great opportunity to call Him Abba father. (Galatians 4:5-7).
REASONS FOR CELEBRATING GOD EVERYDAY
Psalm 145 highlights some of the reasons for celebrating God.
1. Because of his abundant goodness
2. He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and rich in love.
3. He is good, he is trustworthy and faithful
4. He lifts us up
5. He gives us food
6. He satisfies the desires of our heart.
7. He watches over us and fight our battles
We need to Celebrate God for every moment that led to the day, we need to celebrate God for the lessons we've learnt in life, we need to celebrate God for all our blessings, our drive, our passion and our spirit. We need to celebrate God for courage to fight through the hard times, for the people in our life, for putting food on our table, for air in our lungs, for healing our body, for creating opportunity to take our life to the next level. We need to celebrate God for the mental strength to survive difficult times. We need to celebrate God for our health, because many are in worse condition. We need to celebrate God for fighting our battles.
There are unlimited things to celebrate God for and if you have no reason to celebrate God, I will encourage you to go into a quiet place and take an inventory of your life, am sure you will find reasons to celebrate God every day.
HOW DO WE CELEBRATE GOD.
We can celebrate God in a way that will best honour and glorify him. Few months ago, I watched a queen celebrating her husband in public. She called him all sorts of honourable names and praised him in their mother’s language, she ended it all by saying “I celebrate you my love, my king”. I was overwhelmed and I thought, if a queen can praise a king like this, how much more me an ordinary person praising my God. From that time I decided to praise God even more , because He is the God that makes the heaven and the earth , He is the alpha and the omega, the God of all flesh, the God that has been before the foundation of the earth, the ancient of days , the God that can make impossibilities possible, the God that made the heaven his throne and the earth he made his footstool, the everlasting king , the eternal rock of ages, the great provider , the great healer , the great deliverer, the mighty man in battle, the one that loves and cares for me, the creator of heaven and earth, the God that knows no end , the unstoppable God , the indescribable God, the unsearchable God , the unbeatable God , the incomparable God, the indescribable God , the unchangeable changer , the God of wonders , the God of miracle , the God that has no rival ,the God that has no equal , the ALMIGHTY GOD . Your majesty my God! I celebrate you! and I love you.
We can celebrate God by:
1. Singing Praises (psalm 145:7)
2. Praying: prayer connects us to God (1 John 5:14, 2 Chron 7:14, psalm 50:15)
3. Listening or reading the word of God: (Nehemiah 8:12)
4. Evangelism: proclaiming the power of his resurrection (psalm145:11-12)
5. Sharing our testimony:(145: 4-7, 21)
6. Forgiving others (Ephesians 4:31-32)
7. Fasting: Fasting and prayer can strengthen our intimacy with God. (Luke 2:37)
8. Smiling: This radiates the glory of God upon our life. (Philip 4:4, Matt 5 :16)
9. Thanksgiving: (1 Thes 5:18)
10.Giving: Giving in church, giving to the ministers of God and to the needy (2 Corinth 9:7)
11.We can celebrate God in the language we know how to speak best if that is possible.
WHEN DO WE NEED TO CELEBRATE GOD
We need to celebrate God when things are rosy and when things are rough. David celebrated God by praising him in times of distress (Psalm 59:16). Job celebrated God in his affliction by praying for other people (Job 42:10). Paul and Silas celebrated God by praising God in prison (Acts 16:25-34). Brethren, no matter what circumstance we find ourselves we need to celebrate God.
WHAT DO WE GAIN FROM CELEBRATING GOD?
Personally, I feel content when I celebrate God. Although, God can decide to bless us when we celebrate Him, and he can decide not to. However, our God is a good God and he inhabits the praises of his people (Psalm 22:3). We read about how Judah used praise to win their battle (2 Chron: 20) and we read about how Paul and Silas praised God in prison and they were delivered. (Act 16: 25-34). So, whatever the situation may be, when we celebrate God there will be a divine intervention in our life and God can change our story.
Our celebration should not be a give and take practice with God, but it should be done unconditionally. When Paul and Silas praised God in prison, they have no clue what was about to happen in their life, but God set them free miraculously (Acts 16:25-34). We need to celebrate God unconditionally and God will do that which He alone can do in our life.
Although, it is a great joy to praise God in church and praise conference, however it will be a greater joy if we can celebrate Him everyday. I have decided to celebrate God everyday by praising His name at home before going out in the morning. As we are all different and we all have different daily schedules, we can create our own individual celebration plan to celebrate God everyday because He is worthy of all our praises.
Please give your life to Jesus if you have not yet done so. Believe that Jesus Christ is the son of God and he died to take away your sin. Confess your sin and accept Jesus as your lord and saviour.
