Written by Li Huan and translated by Wu Sixin on 20 March 2022
Thank you Lord for this day,
Our version of the birthday song
Thank you Lord for your grace!
May your love be with XX,
All the days of his/her life!
Starting this year, the Young People Fellowship (YPF) will be coordinating a birthday celebration every month. When I first brought up the suggestion, one of them was perplexed and thought, “Is not birthday celebration a secular practice?” Perhaps you may also share similar doubts, so let me share on the significance of birthday celebration.
Birthday celebration holds different significance to Christians and to the world. To the world, one’s birthday may be a day that is centered around the individual. On this day, I am the center of attention, I cut the cake, I will receive numerous presents, I am gathered around by everyone. But to Christians, God is the center of our life, He is the focus of our worship, the core of our thanksgiving, and the goal of our resolution. Therefore, even on our birthday, God remains the center of our life. Thus, there are four things Christians ought to do during their birthday celebration.
Firstly, give thanks to God for giving us life. It is only by the grace of God that we have a birthday (day of birth), as God blesses us with the breath of life. “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” (Psalms 139:13-14) Therefore, we ought to give thanks to our Creator God. For He has protected us since we were in our mother’s womb and has allowed us to be born safely into this world, to taste the fullness of His good gift and perfect reward, and to enjoy Him. How bountiful His grace!
Secondly, give thanks for God’s providence. It is only by God’s protection and care that we have lived for another year. Not only has God completed the work of creation in our lives, but His work of providence continues to sustain us in this world full of sin and crisis, and place us in the kingdom of His beloved Son. “‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ As some of your own poets have said, ‘We are his offspring.’” (Acts 17:28)
Thirdly, contemplate on our spiritual growth as we increase in our earthly age. Have we grown in the knowledge of God’s truth, in the thirst for God’s Word, in the resolution to serve God? “Until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” (Ephesians 4:13) Through the Bible and the Holy Spirit, God continuously spurs us to grow spiritually, not to remain perpetually as infants who live on spiritual milk, but to continuously pursue and live on solid spiritual food.
Lastly, resolute to continue growing in the grace and knowledge of God, just as in 2 Peter 3:18 “But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.” This scripture verse is the lifelong goal of every Christian! As we celebrate our birthday, let us all resolute to know God better, and to grow in the grace and knowledge of God!
“But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be glory both now and forever! Amen.”
2 Peter 3:18
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