June, Our Month of Multiple Celebrations

Amos 9:13-15 in the Message Bible translation says, “Yes indeed, it won’t be long now.” God’s Decree. “Things are going to happen so fast your head will swim, one thing fast on the heels of the other. You won’t be able to keep up. Everything will be happening at once—and everywhere you look, blessings! Blessings like wine pouring off the mountains and hills. I’ll make everything right again for my people Israel: “They’ll rebuild their ruined cities. They’ll plant vineyards and drink good wine. They’ll work their gardens and eat fresh vegetables and I’ll plant them, plant them on their own land. They’ll never again be uprooted from the land I’ve given them.” God, your God, says so.

We Africans don't need to be told to celebrate..lol. We celebrate at every little opportunity already. Sometimes you'll find some of us celebrating failure with adages like "Eni gbodo gba maaki, eyan ni o se". When someone else fails even more woefully than us, we celebrate being better off...Lol! I was mostly kidding though. Generally people have several reasons why they celebrate; We celebrate when increase comes; We celebrate the achievement of milestones e.g. an Induction or a graduation: We celebrate life anniversaries a.k.a. birthdays: We celebrate death when deceased has lived a fulfilled life; We celebrate new seasons of life and of nature and so on. These celebrations serve as a reward for successful efforts and they give us additional levels of energy to move on to the next thing.

All these celebrations show that you are grateful to God as opposed to focusing sadly on what you have not attained. Everyone has escalating needs at every phase of life; our needs and expectations keep increasing but to be grateful for what you've got shows that you are conscious of what God has done for you already. There is a biblical aspect to celebration as well. There were several celebrations that God commanded like the the feast of Passover, feast of Unleavened Bread and feast of Pentecost. Even heaven celebrates and rejoices every time an unbeliever gives his life to Christ. My point here is to enjoin us to walk into the month of June with the consciousness of the need to celebrate, walking in joy and gratitude. Even knowing the freedom of God, is enough to celebrate. Be thankful for your spouse, children, business, your friends, your car, your job e.t.c.

If you increase and you believe that the purpose of that increase is entirely about you, you will fare exactly as the fool fared. Whatever God does for you should not end with you. Others must be able to benefit from your increase and be thankful for your existence. The more God blesses you is the more you are expected to share with others and the more you share, the more reasons you'll have to celebrate. The greatest of all celebrations can be found in Luke 15:11-23 where there is joy in heaven when a sinner repents and comes to God. The emphasis here is the Father's response to the prodigal son's return; (And the son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and in your sight; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his servants, ‘Quickly bring out the best robe [for the guest of honor] and put it on him; and give him a [b]ring for his hand, and sandals for his feet. And bring the fattened calf and slaughter it, and let us [invite everyone and] feast and celebrate - Luke 15:21-23). In this month, one of the greatest celebration that you can trigger is to come back to God. I you have been misbehaving, but you are able to come back to your senses like the prodigal son, then you'll trigger joy and celebration in heaven.