I Will Celebrate
Every day I will praise (bless) you (my praise will never cease- I will praise you every day;) and extol (praise, lift up) your name (yes, I will praise you) for ever and ever (always).
Great is the Lord(!) (The Eternal is great) and (He is) most (so) worthy of praise (greatly to be praised) (and deserves endless praise); his greatness no one can fathom (measure) (God's greatness can't be grasped) (his greatness is unsearchable) (His greatness knows no limit, recognizes no boundary. No one can measure or comprehend His magnificence).
One generation (after another) commends (will praise) (will celebrate) your (great) works to another (the next one); they tell of (proclaiming, shall declare) your mighty acts (they will pass on the story of Your powerful acts to their children). (Let each generation tell its children of your mighty acts; let them proclaim your power.)
They speak of (They will talk about) the glorious splendor of your majesty (Your majesty and glorious splendor have captivated me;)— and I will meditate on (contemplate) your wonderful (wondrous) works (miracles) (I will meditate on Your wonders, sing songs of Your worth).
They tell (speak) (We confess-) of the power of your awesome works (deeds) (the might of your awesome deeds) (there is nothing greater than You, God,)— and I will proclaim (declare) your great deeds (accomplishments) (greatness) (nothing mightier than Your awesome works. I will tell of your greatness as long as I have breath).
They celebrate (Everyone will share the story of) (They will rave in celebration of) (shall pour forth the fame of) your abundant (wonderful) goodness (The news of Your rich goodness is no secret—Your people love to recall it) and joyfully sing (sing aloud) (sing songs of joy to celebrate) of (shout joyfully about) your righteousness.
-Psalm 145:1-7 (NIV, NLT, CEB, ESV, VOICE)
I am learning to live out a life of appreciating God. I have learned that worship is not an event, but a way of life. God is continually blessing us and we need to be continually celebrating him by telling each other what he has done.
Our will is a big thing. What will you do? I will celebrate. I will have faith in God. I will choose God. I will persevere. I will keep on.
It is notable that there is no neutral in the faith world. And faith, to be faith, has be be an action. When you act on something, your are having faith. I believe that my car will start, but I have to put the key in and turn the ignition.
So, I choose, as an act of faith, to praise God. When I do not do this, it's not neutral, but reverse. There is not middle ground, in the spirit.
God is so good, and his blessings are so evident, that you can not not praise him. I imagine that angels can not comprehend why any human would choose not to appreciate God, and yet many choose not to praise him.
So, to live the worship life; the life of celebrating God, it is a will thing. You must do it. You have to choose to praise God. You are free to worship or not to. But, you are a fool not to.
If you hold back on praising God, on appreciating him, seeing him and showing and telling others what he has done; you are only hurting your self. We were designed to worship. Every breath and heart beat is a gift and it just goes on from there.
But it all starts with your will. I will celebrate. Will you?
A big way that we train up the next generation of Christians, of God seekers, of disciples of Jesus; it to give commendation to God out loud. We tell stories to each other about God's workings in our lives.
The normal Christian life is to live a life of God encounters, of seeing God do things, of living with God and being effected by God. Then, when we meet up with others, we tell them what God has been doing in our lives.
We do not meet with other Christians to have a God encounter, but we come to share and celebrate the God stories or Ghost stories from our lives. We come, to hear and see; to celebrate together, what God is doing in our lives. These stories of genuine praise and exaltation of God can and do easily segue into or create and atmosphere for worship and praise.
We worship and praise God to give it to him, to give him worship and praise, for what he has done and is doing. The willingness to appreciate God daily and hourly, and to share these praises for God with any listening ear, will be a blessing to you. Try it, you'll like it.
Most Christians make vows to their new spouses, when they get married. It makes sense and is wise for them to carry through on those vows and live them out. We don't make the vows because we have to, but because we want to. We make the vows, because we love that person.
What are the vows you made when you became the bride of Christ? When God saved you and you came into union with God in Christ, with all the benefits, what was your end of the bargain?
I would suggest that when we get saved or come into salvation through Jesus Christ, that we are catapulted into a life of thankfulness. Our eyes are now open, compared to the unbeliever, and we see God's goodness and blessings everywhere. We now experience the living God in our lives.
We see God on the move and we acknowledge God and show appreciation for him continually. We see, we hear, we experience, and we are impacted by God; and we tell about it, we tell about him. We exalt and extol God. We celebrate him to and with others.
We have to. It is who we are. It would be going against our very identity not to notice God, appreciate God, and testify in a celebratory way. But, it is a matter of the will.
Jesus is Lord, but we have to follow him. That is the "I will" part that we do. It is a voluntary thing, with immense blessings attached.
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Here is the explanation for the italics in The Voice Bible translation:
You may have noticed some text in italics in the example above; that’s another feature of The Voice. Words and phrases in italics represent words that aren’t found in the original text, but which are important for bringing out the original intended meaning of the passage. In the words of The Voice translators, this brings out “the nuance of the original, assist[s] in completing ideas, and often provide[s] readers with information that would have been obvious to the original audience. These additions are meant to help the modern reader better understand the text without having to stop and read footnotes or a study guide.”
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