Rejoice evermore. 1 Thessalonians 5:16
Today’s is an interesting text. This is one of very few verses in our Bibles where the words of the text contain fewer characters than the reference. In the original Greek, this text is actually the shortest in our Bibles, containing fewer characters than John 11:35: ‘Jesus wept’, which is the shortest verse in English. Of this text, rejoice evermore, Charles H. Spurgeon had this to day in one of his sermons in 1886: ‘This is a sunny precept. When we read it, we feel that the time of the singing of birds has come. All that I see, and hear, and feel surrounds me with garlands of delight, while the fairest of all the shepherds of Sharon sings to me this delicious pastoral ‘Rejoice evermore’. The very words have breathed spring into my soul and set my heart blossoming!‘ High words of praise from the prince of preachers! But Spurgeon has it right, if you and I were to take this simple and concise message to heart, life as we know it would change dramatically.
Do we rejoice all the time? Not likely! Instead of greeting each day with a joyful cry of thankful praise, we are more apt to reluctantly creep out of bed wishing we could hide for a few more hours from the ordeal ahead. Instead of gushing with gratitude over our food, we breathe a brief thanks while wishing we had something better. Instead of rejoicing over the opportunities for a productive and interesting day, we trudge off to work longing for early retirement or at least a long vacation. Instead of being thrilled to be part of an Assembly of happy and caring believers, we find fault with just about everybody for one little thing or another. How long do I need to go on with this list to get us to realize that rejoicing evermore is not part of our makeup? But that doesn’t mean that it couldn’t be or shouldn’t be.
The man who God used to lead me to Christ had a simple word of advice that has done me good for more than half a century. He told me to pause briefly as many times of the day as I would think to do so, and send up a brief prayer of thanks to God for saving my soul. Our salvation is truly something to rejoice about all the time. If we can be excited about being preserved from eternal judgment and being reserved for eternal blessing, we will rejoice. The same goes for all the spiritual blessings that our salvation has brought us into. Oh, these are far to numerous to list here but they are surely cause for rejoicing as we consider the Word of God, the fellowship of the Lord’s people, the unending unfolding of God’s rich and precious promises. And all that is before we pause to consider the temporal blessings. Surely God has been good to us, far better than we ever deserved. And He wants us to give to us even more! Just think about the folks around us who would be interested in God’s salvation if they could see how full of rejoicing it makes us.
Before we grumble about today’s annoyances, let us first rejoice over God’s blessings. – Jim MacIntosh