On the football field, the coach walks up and down the sideline in front of his players. He is not happy.
“Get your heads up! All of you! Take those stupid towels off your head! Let’s show some courage around here! The game is not over yet. You’re not defeated until you quit fighting. Lift up your heads! Look like champions!”
The disciples had returned from a trial run in which they had practiced preaching the gospel of Jesus. Since the time would come when Jesus would be absent and they would be doing this “for real,” the Lord wanted them to get a taste of what to expect.
They returned sky high. “Lord! It was wonderful! We saw miracles. Lives changed. People healed. It was great!”
Jesus agreed. “You’re right. In fact, I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.”
“However,” He said, “I do not want you rejoicing because of such.”
“Do not rejoice because the spirits are subject to you. Rejoice because your names are written in heaven” (Luke 10:20).
It wasn’t that He didn’t want them joyful and excited. He loves overflowing praise and exuberance in His children.
He just wants it based on something more substantial than the latest results.
The Lord knew something His disciples were going to find out. The days would come when they would return empty-handed from their preaching missions, their evangelistic trips, their revivals and door-to-door visitations, and their overseas outreach.
Yes, there would be times of great successes and glorious testimonies. But at other times, they would return empty-handed, with no glowing stories, no big numbers, no sparkling testimonies of victories. Sometimes they would do well to get out with their lives, and sometimes they didn’t even manage that.
If their joy needed impressive victories and big numbers, it would be constantly fluctuating. Sometimes they would be happy in the Lord and overflowing with praise, and at other times, their spirits would be dragging, their hope vanished.
The Lord Jesus wants none of that.
He wants His children joyful from beginning to end. “In Thy presence there is fullness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures forevermore” (Psalm 16:11). “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy….” (Galatians 5:22). “These things I have spoken to you that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11).
Joy. There it is. Joy is the constant refrain of Scripture.