This is the day that the Lord has made.

Psalm 118:24 “this is the day that the Lord has made, let us rejoice and be glad in it.”

I remember back in the 90’s (wow, that so long ago now!) we used to sing a song based on this Psalm. Some of you may remember it. I was thinking about this song this morning and caught myself singing it. It’s one of those songs that gets stuck in your head. So I was thinking about this song, and the Psalm that it is related to and thinking, ‘Do I rejoice today?’

Rejoice comes from the Hebrew word gheel, and it literally means ‘to spin around (under the influence of any violent emotion)’. So the question I ask myself is this, Do I spin around, change the way I feel today, because the Lord has made this day? I am alive, I am a child of God, I have the opportunity today to tell others about Him and learn about Him.

It’s so easy to start our day and let our emotions be the gauge of how we feel about the day. The reality though is this; every day is a new day, a day where we can choose to live for Him, let Him be the direction we follow and rejoice, be full of joy, be happy that we are at the very least are alive, that God sees us as valuable. We can choose to be a ‘sour puss’ all day, mope around or just be ‘meh’ about the day. Or we can choose to spin around that emotion to one of joy and thankfulness. When you think about it, joy is a fruit of the spirit, a fruit that we need to cultivate more in our lives, especially in these days when joy is hard to find. Surely, we, as His people, should have joy, for our hope is found in Christ rather than the things of this world. If we want to make an impact on this world for Christ then we should show joy. There is nothing less attractive than a joyless believer. Who wants to follow someone without joy? Not me! Would you?

Let us today and every day, ask the Lord to fill us with joy, learn how to have more joy in our lives even amidst this pandemic and in this show those who do not know Jesus, that our God is a God of Joy. Let’s us rejoice in this new day and be glad.

In Christ our redeemer, Ps Jeff