Thanks for joining us on this journey of building a consistent habit of reading our Bibles every day. The Bible reading plan we are using this year can be found here: One Year Bible or here on the Bible app. As always, if you miss a day, don’t feel compelled to go back and catch up. Just skip it and start back on today’s date. I am reading the NLT this year, but feel free to use whatever version you prefer. Now here are some thoughts from today’s readings:
“Give the following instructions to the people of Israel. These are the Lord’s appointed festivals, which you are to proclaim as official days for holy assembly.“
– Leviticus 23:2
This passage in Leviticus tells of several mandated celebrations God gave the children of Israel. They were massive parties. That’s right, God commanded His people to have several massive parties celebrating His goodness every year. That’s not something you hear preached about a lot, is it? But God was just as serious, if not more serious, that the people celebrated than He was that they fasted. In fact, fasting is only commanded for one day out of all the several festivals mentioned here. For the most part, fasting was left up to the people to decide when a fast was needed. But God commanded several times of feasting!
Now, we are not bound by these old festivals anymore in practice, but the principle still holds true. We should be so excited about God’s goodness in our lives that we literally party. He is more than worth it. So many times in Church we scream for fasts, but ignore the feasts. Don’t ignore the times in your life where you should celebrate the great things God has done for you. Maybe you should have a little celebration right now! We celebrate sports teams, good movies, our own country, and own family, and we often do it with parties, festivals, and lots of screaming and cheering. That’s how we should celebrate God. He has won us the only victory that really matters, salvation through Christ, and we shouldn’t let anything ever be celebrated louder or more than that!
When is the last time you through a party to celebrate what God has done? How do you think you can make your corporate worship time at Church more like a celebration?