Joy in Celebration - 1.3

Celebrations - Memories, Milestones, & Motivation

On Saturday evening our family celebrated! 🎉

It's been a big week for our two kids. Our son, who's been working on his senior thesis for the past 10 months, presented and defended it before panel of judges and an audience -which absolutely included his family. This was a huge accomplishment for him and we wanted to celebrate his hard work.

Our daughter, who's been working to get her drivers liscence, passed her test! She drove herself to school, her favorite bookstore, and work all by herself last week. She is so happy to finally have this independence. I'm so happy for her; and my prayer life just got another boost!

We are proud of their hard work and accomplishments! These are significant milestones in our kids' lives. So, we celebrated with them by taking them out for a really nice meal. It was an evening of rest, laughter, and you got it, JOY!

Celebrations in the Old Testament

Variations of the word 'celebrate' occur over 500 times in the Bible according to Biblehub.com. ⬅️ Click to see my search inquiry.

The term has several translations in Greek and Hebrew. Their definitions include ideas such as:

Feasting

Celebrating

Pilgrimage

Gathering

Dancing

Festival

To be giddy :)

To observe, keep or hold onto

To march in a procession or in a circle together (💃🏽that sounds fun 😃)

Rejoicing

To be merry or make glad

To live joyously!

These terms likely bring up mental images of birthday parties, Christmas mornings, graduation celebrations, weddings, anniversaries, and more. We celebrate all kinds of things in our culture.

The Jews do too. Many of their celebrations date back thousands of years to when God intervened on their behalf. They celebrate:

The Exodus with Passover

God giving Moses the Torah with Shavuot

God's Provision in Harvest with Sukkot

God's salvation during Queen Esther's reign with Purim

As a people the Jews have much to celebrate, and in fact, God COMMANDED them to have these celebrations. Some of them were a whole week long!

For seven days you shall keep the feast to the LORD your God at the place that the LORD will choose, because the LORD your God will bless you in all your produce and in all the work of your hands, so that you will be altogether joyful. Deuteronomy 16:15

Let me ask you a question: What kind of a God would command His people to celebrate so that they can be "altogether joyful"?

A GOOD GOD! These celebrations are for remembering. It's not to be nostolgic and wish for the "good ole days", but to remember what God did. The event is past, but the character of God that was revealed is contstant. Who He was then is who He is today. He is faithful. He was trustworthy then, and He remains trustworthy today.

Celebration in the New Testament

Jesus and His disciples, and all Jews would have celebrated these appointed feasts every year. The New Testament also mentions some new reasons for celebrations:

The father of the prodigal son celebrated when his son returned home. Luke 15:23

Paul reminds us that the Lords' Table, Communion, is to be taken with sincerity and truth, and it is to be celebrated. I Corinthians 5:8

The one that stood out to me the most is found in Matthew 25:14-30. In the parable of the talents, Jesus tells the story of a land owner who was going away on a trip. Before he left he gave three servants "talents" to invest while he was away.

🧐 A "talent" was a measure of weight that was HUGE! Whether it was gold or silver, they all were given enormous amounts of money to invest!

The servant with one talent wickedly and lazily buried it, forgot about it, and lived his life, his way, for his own gain. When the master returned and learned about it, this servant thrown out!

Yikes, there is so much to unpack here! 🔍 (This would be a great One Voice study for ya... wink, wink 😉) but, that's not the focus today.

The other two servants who got 5 and 10 talents took the risks, did the work, invested the talents wisely and $ doubled $ the money! So they went from having enormous sums of money to incomprehensible amounts of money - at least to the average little person like me.

In the New Living Translation, the master responded to both of these servants like this:

“The master was full of praise. ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant. You have been faithful in handling this small amount, so now I will give you many more responsibilities. Let’s celebrate together!" Matthew 25:21, 23

Can you imagine being invited to a celebration with the God who created the entire universe?!

What a joyful thought! The hope and anticipation that God could say this to me is seriously motivating!

And this got me thinking...

When I stop to think about everything God has entrusted to me...

~ Talents 😉 (different meaning from the Biblical usage, but ironically very 'à propos' ! )

~ Spiritual Gifts

~ Relationships

~ Possessions

~ Purpose

~ And on and on... innumerable blessings

... all these are at my disposal to work and invest, or ignore and bury however I want.

The parable is clear. If we choose to ignore and bury the gifts, fearful of the risks, failure, or the work it will take to grow them... it's not going to go well for us when the Master returns.

But, if we are willing to take the risks, do the work, acknowledge all these 'talents', invest them, and do everything we can to grow them; when our Master returns He will invite us to celebrate with Him!

In the Greek, this phrase, "Let's celebrate together", literally says, "enter into the joy of your Master". Here is my Biblehub search result of the Greek translation

This is a celebration that I am planning to enjoy!

It has reminded me this week of the value of my talents and the priority Jesus puts on working to grow them. And ya know what? Yes, there is risk in this endeavor... but there is also SO MUCH FUN! I enjoy using my talents. Practicing them is a delight for me. And I believe our delight in using our talents brings glory to the who gave them to us. Talk about a 'win-win'! 😃

Application

What has the Master given you? What are your:

Talents

Spiritual Gifts

Relationships

Possessions

Purpose etc.?

I encourage you to take some time to intentionally recount all the things God has entrusted to you. Maybe take a little inventory - do a little soul searching.

Here's the questions I've been asking myself this week:

1. How are your investments growing?

2. What are you doing to 'work them' and care for them?

3. Is there something that perhaps the Holy Spirit has been prompting you to do with them that you've been putting off?

4. Are there any fears that you need to face in order make these investments?

5. What good thing do you need to say, "no" to in order to say a resounding, "YES!" to the best things?

6. Who can you learn from that has invested similar talents really well?

Finally, like the Jews, what yearly celebrations do you and your loved ones look forward to with joy?

What has God done that you intentionally remember and celebrate and enjoy?

This weekend people around the world will be remembering that Jesus, the perfect Son of God, gave Himself as a sacrifice for our sin when He died on the cross. Then on Sunday, we will celebrate the greatest victory in history.

JESUS IS ALIVE!

Our debt is paid.

Our redemption is complete.

The gift of salvation is now available to all who call on the name of Jesus!

I was dead in my sins. Now, through the life of Jesus, I AM ALIVE with Him!

That is the greatest news in the history of the world! Of all the reasons in this life to celebrate, Jesus is the best!!

He IS RISEN!

Happy Resurrection Day celebrations to you and your loved ones,

Melissa

This study was done using One Voice methods. Click to learn more about the book and how you can study the Bible with Holy Spirit as your primary teacher.

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