Good morning you guys! Numbers chapter 29.
The Festival of Trumpets, the Day of Atonement, and the Festival of Tabernacles are all forms of celebration to the Lord. These special gatherings are all about God. It's acknowledging God and denying self. It's setting aside our regular busy days so we can focus on the Lord. It's not about me, it's about God. And when I make it all about God then I'm offering all of myself and God cleanses me and forgives me and makes me whole again.
I admire the fact that they have a 7-Day festival for the Lord. The focus is all about celebrating God. So I asked myself, how can I celebrate God more often? Here's what I have concluded:
- Throughout each day, I want to be more conscious on saying thank you and praising God for the many blessings that come my way. Such blessings could include Happy events, food on the table, he warm place to sleep and live, accomplishments, trials and tribulations that help me be more like Jesus, answered prayers, etc. I really want to be more conscious about celebrating God throughout the day.
- Something that I've done for a while now which I want to continue, so I'll share it with you. I do a prayer walks around the campground 6 days a week. On Saturday, I attempt to have no prayers of asking during my prayer walk and even throughout the day. Instead I, turn every prayer into a Thanksgiving and praise. I spend time praising God for answered prayers and praise him and thank him for how he will answer prayers. Each asking prayer is turned into a form of praise and thanksgiving as a way of acknowledging to God that I know he's in control and he's going to take care of the needs that exist. Let me give two examples of what I mean. Days 1 through 5 I'll pray for the staff that are needed for our summer camps, but on the sixth day I thank God for how he is going to supply all the staff that are needed for the summer camps. If someone texts me and asked me to pray for them, on the sixth day I thank God for how he is working in their lives and answering the prayer.
Have a great day!
I couldn’t help but think of the song, The 12 Days of Christmas while I was reading chapter 29 with how it kept saying about what to present on each (certain number) ___ day and also with the repetition of certain offerings that were to be made on particular days. My Bible has a quote from Matthew Henry written in it about this chapter that I will share here. “There were more sacred solemnities in the seventh month than in any other. It was the space between harvest and seed-time. The more leisure we have from the pressing occupations of this life, the more time we should spend in the immediate service of God.”
May that be the case for us to serve God and may we use the time wisely to bring glory to Him.
Blair I love that idea! I find myself praying a lot of “asking” prayers and I want to focus on prayers of thanksgiving!
The words, deny yourself, really stood out to me in this chapter. In our society today we live in an instant gratification mindset, get what we want when we want it, and deny ourselves very little. Sometimes we indulge in sin or those worldly gratifications. How often do we think about actually denying ourselves? For a day, during a meal, at our work? It’s not something we maybe think about consciously. Right here in this chapter God is asking us to do that. To deny ourselves and live for Him. Celebrate Him. Worship Him. I pray we can all do that a little more this week!