In Chapter 10 of his Gospel, Luke records the story of Jesus sending out seventy-two missionaries out to the towns in advance of Jesus visiting them. They were to heal the sick and proclaim that the kingdom of God has come near.

The missionaries experienced success and expressed their excitement about it. Luke tells us,

The seventy-two, returned with joy, saying, “Lord, even the demons submit to us in your name.”

Luke 10:17 (CSB)

The response of Jesus encourages me.

Jesus basically says to the missionaries, “Yes, you have been given some power and by it have seen some success, but don’t be so focused on that. What is really worth celebrating is that your names are written in heaven.” (my paraphrase of Luke 10:18-20).

This encourages me because we won’t always experience success. At times we will experience loss and frustration.

The American church is so focused on measurable results. We track baptisms, attendance and giving so that we can have a sense of whether we are making progress. There is nothing wrong with quantifying these things, but we can end up confusing them with our ultimate goal.

Some are called to minister in churches that don’t experience rapid growth in any of these metrics. If measurable success is the reason for our joy, some of us will struggle to be joyful.

Some times we pray for healing that doesn’t come. We invest in people who walk away from the faith. We walk in obedience and things don’t work out the way we think they should.

Jesus tells the missionaries to look beyond success or failure to that which can never be taken away from us. Our salvation is the only fail-proof source of joy.

I write this because I have recently gone trough a period of great frustration. I was frustrated because I was focused on measuring my success in ministry. God, in his wisdom, placed me in an environment where my gifts and abilities were not appreciated and my opinion was not valued. My response was to try harder which only led to increased frustration for myself and the people around me.

I am learning that success in any endeavor cannot be the gauge by which I assess myself. My value does not come from what I do or how successfully I do it. My value comes from the one who gave his life so that I might be in relationship with him.

The author of Hebrews tells us:

Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the source and perfecter of our faith. For the joy that lay before him, he endured the cross, despising the shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.

Hebrews 12:1b-2 (CSB)

You and I make up the “joy that lay before him.” Jesus had you and I in mind when he went to the cross.

What else do we need to feel valued?

I Recently came across a blog post from Frank Viola which listed these six affirmations that he reads every morning. I found them helpful and thought I would share them with you.

1. Let go of how life ought to be and find joy somewhere in whatever your life currently is.
2. Ruthlessly eliminate all expectations of how your day should be.
3. Receive everything that happens today as passing through God’s sovereign hands before it gets to you.
4. All things that take place today – including the irritations and disappointments — will work together for your good. Romans 8:28 is still in the Bible.
5. You can’t control what others do, but you can control what you do and how you react.
6. Shift the responsibility on God to change the things you cannot. It’s His worry, not yours. 1 Peter 5:7 is still in the Bible.

Do you like them? If you would care to add to the list, please use the comment box below.

My previous post highlighted the command given to us by the Apostle Paul in Philippians 4:4 to rejoice. But there are times when we find this difficult to do. Why is it difficult and how do we counteract the difficulty?

R. C. Sproul, in his book Can I have Joy in my Life?, rightly points out that the great enemy of joy is anxiety. In support of this statement, he points out that two verses after the command to be joyful Paul writes about anxiety:

Don’t worry about anything, but in everything, through prayer and petition with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7 (CSB)

There are two tools Paul gives is for counteracting anxiety in our lives.

The first tool is thanksgiving. It dawns on me that it is difficult to be thankful and anxious at the same time. Being anxious stems from a lack of confidence that things will work out properly. For the Christian, we claim that God has everything under control, but our worry is an indication that we don’t really believe this, or at least, we don’t believe it enough to be fully trusting.

It seems to me that if I am working at finding things for which I can be thankful, it will go a long way toward displacing my doubts about how things will work out.

The second tool is petition. Jesus taught us to ask for our daily bread (Matthew 6:11) so we should have no scruples against being honest with God about our concerns and our needs.

The problem is that I let God know about my concerns and my needs while continuing to worry about whether or not they will be met. This again belies my claim to complete faith in God. I have very imperfect faith which is not strong enough to overcome my anxiety.

It boils down to a choice. I can choose to believe that when I give the problem to God, he will address it. I can choose to be thankful for the blessings I have received and remain in thanksgiving even when I have no evidence that my current concern has been addressed.

I know that I cannot muster up more faith, but I can choose to act on the faith that I already possess. The choice is mine (and yours).

I don’t know about you, but I too often allow my circumstances to dictate how I feel. I allow myself to be like a block of foam on the ocean, bouncing around where the current and the waves take me. When things are going well, I’m OK but when things are difficult or uncomfortable, then . . .

Challenging me in this tendency is the Apostle Paul when he writes:

Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice!

Philippians 4:4 (CSB)

The verb rejoice in this verse is in the imperative mood; it is a command. Paul is not making a suggestion. Nor is he presenting rejoicing as a nice-to-have. It is a command from one who has authority to give one. We have no option but to rejoice.

What is most interesting to me about this command is that Paul was in a Roman prison when he wrote it. He was not on the beach surrounded by friends. He was not hiking with snow-peaked mountains as a backdrop. He was in a stinky, dirty, moldy prison.

The ability to rejoice when things are going wrong is a byproduct of having a strong sense of where God is leading. If I know I am where God wants me to be, then I will be more likely to rejoice when things are difficult.

The Apostle Paul was confident that he was in prison for a purpose and in that prison he practiced what he preached. He rejoiced in the difficult circumstances and demonstrated that I have no excuse for not doing the same.

But if I left you with the impression that one only need to try harder at rejoicing, I would do us both a disservice. I find that in my own strength I can give the appearance of rejoicing but cannot produce the real thing.

My ability to rejoice in difficulties is a work of God’s grace in my life. It is not something that I can muster up on my own. But, by God’s grace, I am taking baby steps in learning to really rejoice.