A Big Deal About Birthdays

This Friday I turn 53 years old. To this day I still enjoy receiving gifts on my birthday including restaurants offering free drinks and food (but don’t care for the silly songs some employees sing). As kids, most of us got excited when we turned another year older. Perhaps you got to eat cake and ice cream plus open presents. Sadly some children are deprived of these things.

A couple of weeks ago while some friends and I were hanging out at McDonald’s, two Jehovah’s Witnesses sat in the booth next to us. One of them was a little boy whose birthday happened to be that very day. When one of my friends found out about that, she offered to buy the boy an ice cream cone. The older JW said they don’t observe birthdays citing Ecclesiastes 7:1, “A good name is better than precious ointment, and the day of death than the day of one’s birth.” The Watchtower often uses Old Testament verses taken out of context to support their unorthodox beliefs.

It’s not a sin to acknowledge days special to us such as birthdays and anniversaries. The truth is the Lord likes to party. Jesus turned water into wine at a wedding feast in John chapter 2. He also said in Luke 15:10, “...there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” 

So if you know Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior, then a birthday party occurred for you in heaven the day you got born again. Someday we’ll all be there together for a greater celebration...the Marriage Supper of the Lamb.

“One person esteems one day above another; another esteems every day alike. Let each be fully convinced in his own mind.” - Romans 14:5

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