TODAY’S SCRIPTURE
For seven days celebrate the festival to the Lord your God at the place the Lord will choose. For the Lord your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete. Deuteronomy 16:15
Read: Deuteronomy 16:13-15
Listen: Deuteronomy 16
TODAY’S MESSAGE
God gives the Israelites three large annual feasts. The last feast of the year is the Feast of Tabernacles. It’s a celebration at the end of the agricultural season. It’s a feast of completion. They’ve harvested the fields, and the fruit is picked. Now they are to celebrate. God wants it to be full of joy. It’s a time for the people to exhale as they look back on the work they’ve done and how God provided for them.
Our lifestyle is not nearly as agriculturally based as the Israelites. Thanksgiving isn’t a feast of completion for most of us. It’s just a break. But we do recognize the need to celebrate the completion of things. We throw graduation and retirement parties. We stay up late on New Year’s Eve. Times of completion are often natural times of joy and celebration. These celebrations afford us space to reflect on what’s happened.
IN YOUR CHAIR TIME TODAY
Plan to be intentional with your moments of completion and celebration. As we move into the Christmas season and wrap up 2022, plan some time to joyfully celebrate what God has done this year. This could include publicly celebrating with friends and family, as well as some time alone with God.
2022 BIBLE MEMORY PRACTICE
Develop spiritual roots and tap in the power of God’s word by memorizing monthly a Bible verse! View previous verses at beyondtheweekend.org/biblememorypractice.
ROMANS 12:10
Be devoted to one another in love. Honor one another above yourselves.
