Today is the Day to Rejoice

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Scripture: Psalm 118:24 (ESV)

24          This is the day that the Lord has made;

let us rejoice and be glad in it.

 

Devotion:

            Today’s Christians seldom truly rejoice. Maybe it’s just me but I sense that we have been beaten down by culture and we lack a true passion for the Lord most of the time. We simply go through the motions of doing things for the Lord. Our prayers lack faith. Even our singing sounds like a funeral dirge most of the time. What, I ask myself, is our problem? I think the answer lies in our attitude toward God.

            I think most Christians, at least in America, find God boring. We endure our one hour a week devoted to him as if we were doing God a favor by showing up. As a result, we are missing out on the joy of belonging to Jesus. We lack our connection to God through the Holy Spirit. This leads to us lacking in our lives the fruit of the spirit in our everyday lives. If this is the case with us, what can we do about it? How do we get back to the place of joy filled service to God?

            The first place we need to examine is ourselves. Are we carrying around the baggage of unconfessed sin? Sin that is allowed to fester breeds decay in our spiritual life. David in his well known psalm 51 acknowledges that his sin with Bathsheba was stealing his joy here is verse 12.

 

“12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation

and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me”

 

            We must confess and repent of any known sin in our lives, or we simply will miss out on the joy we can have in the Lord. We must pray that we will be delivered from our sins in order to truly experience the fruit of the spirit.

            Another place where we may lack a proper attitude toward God is our expectations of what we can expect of God. If our faith is weak, we will not expect God to show up for us when we pray or worship Him. Even Jesus experienced this. When he went back to his hometown he was not recognized as the Messiah, and the scripture says he did not do many miracles there. (See Luke 4: 16-30) We need to pray for God to increase our faith so that we can know the joy of answered prayers.

            Finally, we need to acknowledge that God is the source of each and every day that we live. We must live with thanksgiving for each day God allows us to see on this earth. We can follow the scriptures exhortation that “this is the day that the Lord has made let us rejoice and be glad in it”. If we can allow God to meet us in each new day we will truly be filled with joy.

 

Prayer:

            Let your people rejoice in the goodness of our God. Help us to live our lives as free from sin as possible. Grant us a willing spirit and a joyful heart that we may serve you each and every day. Let us be known as a people of joy and love. Help us to have great faith in you that we may see our prayers answered and your name glorified through us. Amen.

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