Though this revisit from March 2005, comes from the Spring celebrations of Christ, I think it is valid to this time of year as well.
This
is the season to celebrate Jesus, but how can we know how to celebrate Him?
What if my life was rotten and I was full of stinking- thinking?
How
would I get the right things to think about?
Where can I go to find a reason to celebrate?
In
His Word!
Glory in His holy name; Let the hearts of those rejoice who seek the LORD! Seek the LORD and His strength; Seek His face evermore! 1 Chronicles 16:10-11
I will be glad
and rejoice in You; I will sing praise to Your name, O Most High. Psalm 9:2
We will rejoice
in your salvation, And in the name of our God we will set up our banners!
May the LORD
fulfill all your petitions. Now I know
that the LORD saves His anointed.
He will answer
him from His holy heaven With the saving strength of His right hand. Some trust in chariots, and some in horses;
But we will remember the name of the LORD our God. Ps 20:5-7
Did
you ever think about the fact that Rejoicing is a choice? Hmm, no? Yes it is! We cannot even think of
rejoicing without deciding if we want to rejoice or not. I say choose to rejoice!
When
life stinks like dirty socks
Choose
to Rejoice and it will knock your socks off!
What
does rejoice mean? Or rather what do you do to rejoice? Rejoice according to
the dictionary means; Be glad.
What
can we do to be glad in the Lord?
R- Rest in Him,
know that God is in control, trust Him to take care of you! Proverbs 3:5-6 is
my favorite scripture because it tells me not to worry, not fret, but to trust
Him. Then it goes on to tell me to not try to figure it out! So many times, we do that, we try to figure
out how, or why we are going through something. We think that if only we
understood the problem, then we could fix it.
E- Exalt Him,
shout unto God with a voice of triumph! Think of reasons to thank Him for your
day! You got to work with out running out of Gas. You have a job to pay your
bills with! You got to take another
breath today. There are many things to lift Christ up for!
J- Just do it!
Make it a plan to rejoice. “I will be glad and rejoice in You, I will sing
praises to Your name, O Most High. Psalm 9:2
We can read all through the Psalms this week and see how many times it says,
“I will rejoice” It is not something that just happens, in fact I don’t think
there is an instance of “ I happened to be rejoicing out of the blue for no reason.”
O-Overcome through
rejoicng, when you have a tough day, think about good things not bad.
Philippians 4:8 tells us what to think about.
Finally,
brethren, whatever things are true, whatever things are noble, whatever things
are just, whatever things are pure, whatever things are lovely, whatever things
are of good report, if there is any virtue and if there is anything
praiseworthy -- meditate on these things. 9 The things which you learned and
received and heard and saw in me, these do, and the God of peace will be with
you.
I- It's not about
me, I choose to rejoice in Him for His glory
Through
our thinking on these things, we will overcome the tasks befor us. I am finding
personally through a book I have been studying that the things that pull us down
are mostly untruths. These untruths can weigh on us like a ton of bricks, until
we release them to God. The enemy would love for us to think on the bad stuff
in life, but Christ gave us life that we may grow closer to Him, that we may
rejoice in Him.
If
things come to mind, and we realize that they are not truths, then we can make
the choice to change what we were thinking about, look for true things to think
about today!
C-Choose to
Celebrate Jesus! This time of year, many people begin thinking about Christ,
and how to celebrate His Resurrection! That should make it easy to rejoice!
After all, Christ died so you can sit there feeling sorry for yourself… or did
He? He died so we do not have to sit there feeling sorry for ourselves but
instead we can… think on whatever is good, etc. There is none good but God!
That means we can think on God and rejoice just thinking about His attributes!
E-Everlasting!
Isaiah 61:7
Instead of your shame you shall have double honor, and
instead of confusion they shall rejoice in their portion. Therefore, in their
land they shall possess double; everlasting joy shall be theirs.
Rejoicing today can last forever! If God’s love for you and me is everlasting, that alone is a reason to rejoice. His love is never changing, unconditional, that is more reason to rejoice. He can give you a peace that passes all understanding, and don’t even try to figure that one out, all because you keep your mind on Him. That is even more reason to rejoice! God makes things simple for us; we people tend to make it more difficult.
Okay,
so for this week, I want us all to choose
to focus on things we can rejoice about.
Let’s
make a list for ourselves, each day adding to it and literally count our
blessings. I am sure we all have our
times when it will be a difficult task to find even one reason to praise His
name, but if nothing else, today’s scripture verses and the weeks suggested
readings should give all of us reason to rejoice, with out even having to
search.
If
you want to make it more fun, try going through Philippians 4:8 and name
something off for each suggestion. Whatever things are pure… name something
pure you can think about. Whatever things are true? Think of a truth, Jesus
lives! There is a freebie! We are all heading into Passover and Palm Sunday and
Resurrection Sunday so lets get our spiritual selves geared up for celebrating
Jesus.
Dear
Heavenly Father, Help us to think about what things would cause us to rejoice
and not to think on things that would bring us down. Remind us in Your Word of
the glories of Your Kingdom that we are also a part of. Remind us that You love
us today, and that You chose us, so we can have a reason to choose to rejoice
in You! In Jesus name, amen.
Suggested
Readings Philippians 4:1-23, Psalm 13:1-6, Psalm 31:1-24,
Psalm 35:all, Luke 6:1-39, and John 4:&5 all.
***If
for any reason you choose ever not to receive this devotion again please
remember that all it takes is replying with a "Please remove me from this
list." I do ask that if there is a problem with anything I write for you
to feel free to write me back and let me know what the problem was that we
might go over it together and seek the truth in love.
In
His love, Teresa M. Wilson
Copyright © 2005
by Teresa M. Wilson.