By: Yonas L

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing,  give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” – 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

The attitude of our hearts as Christians is something that we must attend to. When we live in this world and face challenges and hardships, it’s very easy for us to lose heart and grow weary and tired. We must exercise God centered wisdom in the navigation of this life. God’s word is a lamp for our path, and we must run to it in order that we may see and walk in the light. We can very easily be near-sighted and lose perspective on why we are here and for what purpose we exist. Focus is a vital part of keeping our eyes on the plow.  The apostle Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 shows us the proper response when the Holy Spirit is working on our hearts in this broken world. We will cover each of these three commands: rejoice always, pray without ceasing, and give thanks.

Rejoice always: Why is it important for us to rejoice always? What are we rejoicing over? We need to go through these clarifying questions to get to the right answer. The important aspect of rejoicing is that it shows God and His impact on our lives. How can we claim to have received the valuable gift of eternal life when Joy is not a distinguishing mark of our brand-new life? It simply is not possible to consider ourselves co-heirs with Christ and joy not to be evident in that. Now we must clarify, I don’t mean that we are always feeling happy and always having a smile on our faces 24/7. I am not talking about suppressing negative emotions and pretending they’re not there. I am talking about the active work of grace lifting our hearts in our dark times by ways of focusing our minds and our hearts on what Christ has done for us. The way to rejoicing is through this active battle of reminding ourselves who we are and what has been done for us. If this battle does not take place in us, then we are fighting this fight inadequately and insufficiently. Not only are we not going to overcome, but it will overtake us. 

This work of grace is God’s Mercy that shows up on time every time for the believer. Mercy, by definition, is undeserved. What that means is that God does not lift our hearts in these challenging times because we have been such exceptional Christians; in fact, the opposite may be true. Most often, we find the challenging times to come when we are most spiritually cold and indifferent. When we seem to overlook certain promises and encouragement found in the word of God, it is in that time that we are most vulnerable to outside influences. It is at that time when our own weakness becomes evident to us, and how this Christian life is a life lived by the Spirit and not by the flesh. It is then that God shows us that He is always with us and will never forsake us. We must rejoice in the fact that our God is with us. Rejoice in the fact that we are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus. Rejoice in the fact that we live the blessed life, and yet the best is still to come.  Rejoice and rejoice always that this is the will of God that we should enjoy the presence of Him who has called us to His purposes.  

One thing to always remember is that our rejoicing does not depend on us. Our rejoicing is set upon our connection with the Lord Jesus Christ. If we have died with Him, we also live through Him (Romans 6:8). We rejoice because we have been united with the Anointed One of God. We must contemplate our union with Him for our joy to be complete and consider the position in which He sits.

“You love Righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of Joy.”-Psalm 45:7

We sit with Him by faith in heavenly realms

 We have been united with the second Adam, the promised Messiah, the one and only savior of the world, the Lord Jesus Christ.  We sit with Him by faith in heavenly realms. (Ephesians 2:6). This is why it’s a complete Joy and a perfect one. It is totally dependent on this union, not on anything we do.

This fellowship with the Son of God is knitted together and sealed by the Spirit. This takes us to the second command in our focus verse Pray without ceasing. Before we get into it, there is an important question we must ask ourselves: what do we think about prayer? Charles Spurgeon was once asked what is more important: prayer or reading the Bible? He answered What is more important, breathing in or breathing out? Because prayer does not always have an immediate outcome, we tend to sometimes look at it lightly. Prayer is an essential part of what it means to be a Christian. If we live a prayerless life,   we are void of the Spirit, and if we are void of the Spirit, we are void of life. A prayerless life is a powerless life.  We can never say I have prayed enough and don’t have a need to pray. If we do that means we are lacking in seeing ourselves and we are lacking in seeing our need of God. 

 Prayer is our communion with the Creator. If we truly have affections and love for our God, why wouldn’t we express that through prayer? If we truly believe that He is the source of our strength, why wouldn’t we ask for help through prayer? Or are these statements we learn from the Bible but fail to experience its application? We are commanded to pray without ceasing because God desires we do life with intimate closeness with Him. The very fact that God desires for us to communicate with Him should bring much Joy to our hearts. We must see the privilege that we have in praying to Him. We must see the cost of what it took for us to have this opportunity. We pray because we who were far off have been brought near by the precious blood of Jesus Christ (Ephesians 2:13). When we pray, we are exercising that right that Jesus our Lord gave to us. Are we conscious of this? Do we rejoice over this? We should remind ourselves of this privilege. As Christians, it is an honor to pray to the living God. It is a duty and granted to us by the will of God through salvation.

Most often, it is very easy for us to have a warped perspective on prayer. Which mainly comes from the perspective that sees prayer as some religious activity that helps us attain spiritual points with God, or worse, seeing it as an opportunity to show our faith to others. Our view of prayer through the flesh is described by Jesus on Matthew 6:5-8

“And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.” -Matthew 6:5-8

Prayer done by our flesh is a practice of hypocrisy and religious activity. In this form, it is dull, it is rehearsed, and it is empty. It is done with full acknowledgment of people with complete ignorance of God. As we discussed earlier, before we can approach prayer the right way,  we must first be aware of God’s presence. When we understand that God sees us in the difficult times and in the best of times, prayer is simply us communicating back that we see His presence and we invite Him to do His work in our lives. 

His Work Of Salvation

When we talk about His work, what are we talking about? This is an important question that must be addressed. His work is salvation. Yes, salvation is a finished work that Jesus accomplished on the cross, and we can’t add to it or subtract from it. What we are talking about is the process and application of this work by the Holy Spirit on the believer. This takes us to the final point of the verse, giving thanks for His will for us in Christ Jesus. It’s important to point out that this is His will for us and not our own. We must remember we were dead in our trespasses. Not one of us looked to him, not one of us sought God or had understanding. We were all together lost. It is from this foundation that we must look at His will for us. 

So, what is His will? That we, who have been Chosen and believed in Christ Jesus through the sanctifying power of the Spirit, shall be conformed to His image. What an incredible and unimaginable gift that this is. The way that this comes about is through God using His Word and applying it to our lives. It is God revealing Himself through the Word.  As we go through life, we will experience how God’s Word is living and active through faith. To the Christian, the word of God is not some philosophical idea that brings intellectual satisfaction. The Word of God is the power of God that comes with evidence in its ability to touch our lives in ways like nothing on this earth can. The word of God penetrates to the core of what it means to be a human. It answers questions we never thought to ask. We give thanks in all circumstances because of that reason. In what seems from our natural perspective a chaotic and meaningless existence has been found to have order and purpose right in the midst. In what seems to be a world in complete darkness, it has seen a great light. What seems to be a place of complete hopelessness has been visited and conquered by the King of Hope. When we come to Christ, this reality becomes open to us. It is then that we realize that everything is subservient to Christ. When we realize this, the love of God has broken through the hardness of our natural hearts. There is nothing that can overtake a believer because of Jesus Christ. We live because He lives. We are more than conquerors in Christ Jesus, for that we give thanks for that is His will. 

Reflection Questions

• What do you rejoice over?
• What do you pray about? (What we pray for generally reveals where our heart is)
• What are you thankful for?