This week’s blog post is a devotional I wrote on Psalm 100 for our church’s advent devotional booklet. I wanted to share it with you.
Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs. Know that the Lord is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the Lord is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations. (Psalm 100)
Psalm 100 has been the focus of our memory work this fall for Jr. Church. Our goal was to help the children understand worship, which we defined as “giving worth to someone (or something), showing him how much we value him, how important he is to us.” As we head into the Advent season, how can we show Jesus how important he is to us? How can we show him how much we value him?
Psalm 100 talks of letting joy, gladness and thanksgiving characterize our days. How often over the weeks leading up to the holiday do I grumble about how much I have to do or how much I have to spend?
Awhile back I read about a guy who decided he would stop saying he “had” to do things and start saying he “gets” to do them. It changed his perspective. Instead of seeing things as chores, he began to see them as privileges.
What if we changed our holiday vocabulary to “I get to ________” and then thanked God for that “get to”? I think we would begin to recognized how blessed we are:
- I get to spend Christmas with relatives because I am blessed with a family.
- I get to buy presents for my loved ones because I am blessed with an income.
- I get to go to school Christmas programs because I am blessed with children and/or grandchildren.
- I get to address Christmas cards because I am blessed with long-time friends in faraway places.
- I get to wrap gifts because I am blessed with an appreciation of beauty and anticipation.
- I get to bake cookies because I am blessed with the ability to taste and enjoy food (and so are my family members).
- I get to go to church because I am blessed by God’s gift of Jesus.
I imagine we would join King David in “worshiping the Lord with gladness . . . for the Lord is good.” Let’s “get to” this Advent season and make it a season of thanksgiving and joy.