Day 21 of 100 Days: From “Celebration to Jubilation” Read: 1 Sam 30, 2 Sam 6
We are in the Joy of the Lord Right? Now let us open the door of “Celebration” as we move into “Jubilation”! Here is a link to one of our songs that go with today’s focus! Dance Dance Dance
Chuck D. Pierce
The next step for the body of Christ is to go from praise to celebration to jubilation. What does this mean? Haven’t we done enough by praising? Haven’t we connected with God, changed the atmosphere, and determined the perspective? If we have done these things, then we have done a lot, but there is one more step that we must take—the coup de grâce. This phrase means “the blow of mercy” in French and is used to describe “a death blow intended to end the suffering of a wounded creature. It is often used figuratively to describe the last of a series of events that brings about the end of some entity.”11
That entity for us is the devil’s kingdom and his power over us. Our praise is awesome and powerful, but when we take that up a notch to celebration and then to jubilation, our sound becomes a deathblow to the enemy’s plans for us. I love the words celebration and jubilation. In the Bible, celebrate is from the Hebrew word hagag, which denotes a wild action like the behavior of a drunken person, used in the context of rejoicing. You know how we get sometimes when we’ve just won the big game—we shout, scream, jump up and down, and hug everyone (while jumping up and down). Someone could easily think we are drunk, except no one is watching each other—we are all caught up in the spirit of celebration and victory. The emotion of the moment has overtaken the atmosphere. The rapturous spirit has overcome the environment.
The word hagag was used to depict the dancing and rejoicing that was done when there was a victory over the enemy in battle, as in 1 Samuel 30:16 (niv) when David came upon the Amalekites who had plundered his city of Ziklag: “There they were, scattered over the countryside, eating, drinking and reveling because of the great amount of plunder they had taken” (emphasis added). The word reveling in this passage is the Hebrew word hagag. The Amalekites were celebrating their victory. Their actions were wild and appeared hedonistic. We will discuss situations like this in a later chapter. This was how David made it through every narrow transition.
When David was rebuked by his wife Michal for his dancing and celebration in the streets before the ark, David told his wife, “You ain’t seen nothing yet!” (2 Sam. 6:22, author’s paraphrase). This must be our attitude, because invariably there will be those who want us to tone down our celebration before the Lord to show respect for a religious kingdom that is in place. However, we must remember that the kingdom of God is ever changing. Every time glory comes into our worship in a new way, the manner in which we demonstrate and administrate the power of God changes.