“Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” – 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18
Last week, we proposed a definition of joy as: happiness in the future that we can see today. In joy, there carries the hope of a worthwhile goal to strive towards. It is the fuel that moves us to take steps of faith and persevere through hardships. Paul reminds us that God desires us to constantly be fueled by joy through prayer (connection to His throne) and a thankful attitude (heart of faith) – founded on the hope of Christ Jesus.
When we begin to see this verse from a kingdom angle, the implications on a nation’s economy can be tremendous. Our economic system’s vitality is driven by our confidence and optimism for investing into the future – the hope that moves us to take risks and persevere through failures. In other words, joy will release the capital flow crucial to bringing about value creation through creativity and innovation, which is the engine for economic recovery and growth. Creating more money and dumping it into an economy without joy will only create greater debt that will eventually crush our system. This is why Jesus wants us to be immersed in joy. That hope in Christ is the only way we can bring about true confidence and optimism for our future.
Our market place prayer this week is that God will raise the 10,500 network to be a people immersed in joy, bringing about powerful testimonies of economic vitality and hope to a world crushed under the weight of it own debt.
Please click here for last week’s sharing and prayer on “What is Joy?”.
