What does it mean to rejoice always (1 Thessalonians 5:16)?

But more. Though in tribulation, there could yet be a positive rejoicing, not intermittently but evermore, consistently, which is really only normal when the Lord Jesus Himself is the Object of our joy. And prayer too is to be as constant. At all times the heart may be lifted up to God, so real a habit that every occasion of need, of difficulty, or of distress will find us voluntarily and immediately crying to Him from the heart. This too is to he attended with thanksgiving "in everything." We cannot of course give thanks for what is sinful, but in the midst of whatever evil or good this thankful spirit is to be ours. The importance of this is pressed upon us in the fact of its being "the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you." If we are honest in saying we desire the will of God, then here it is, and no excuse can be accepted for lack of giving of thanks.

(V. 16). “Rejoice always”. The world is full of sorrow, and in such a world the Lord was the Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, but His joy in the Father, and in the prospect before Him was unbroken. Thus in the darkest hour of His rejection, we read, “Jesus rejoiced in spirit” (Luke 10:21). In like manner the believer is called to “rejoice always”.

Nor should the Christian give an ill impression of his God and Father or of the portion he even now possesses in His grace, any more than of his prospects. With what joy the disciples returned even from their Master departing to heaven! And the Holy Spirit in due time came to make the joy unfailing. (John 4:14) What has there been since to dry up the spring? "Rejoice always."

But we are still in the body and in the world, as they were. Therefore is the word "pray unceasingly;" just as we see those who returned with great joy from Olivet, all with one accord continuing steadfastly in prayer with Mary the mother of Jesus, not yet the abomination of prayer to her or to His brethren. Yet this due expression of increasing dependence on God should never be without thanksgiving, but as we are in everything, which otherwise might make us anxious, by prayer and supplication to let our requests be made known to God (Phil. 4:6), so are we here exhorted to "give thanks in everything." And as a constant spirit of thanksgiving is the very reverse of nature's querulousness, because of manifold suffering and chagrin and disappointment, the apostle fortifies this call with a reason subjoined, "for this is God's will in Christ Jesus toward you." Otherwise it would soon in the declension of Christendom have been counted levity and presumption. How truly does the apostle say in his second Epistle, "all have not faith."

In the presence of these different sorrows, the Lord was His resource. Thus he can say, "Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, rejoice." We cannot always rejoice in our circumstances, or in the saints, but we can always rejoice in the Lord. Some pass away and others change, but of the Lord we can say, "Thou remainest," and "Thou art the same" (Heb. 2:11-12).

In these verses we have the normal state of the Christian perpetual joy, perpetual prayer, and perpetual thanksgiving. What do we know of perpetual joy, of a joy that never wanes? If we were marked more by these three things what a different people we should be!

In the order in Thessalonians, joy comes before prayer; and the question is, Where is true Christian joy to be found? The joy of the Lord is our strength, and how is this joy to be maintained? Paul had this joy in prison and he told the Philippians to rejoice always. It is only to be found where the Lord Himself found it. He found it through obedience, and as we are obedient we shall prove it likewise. The dependent Man could say in Psalm 16, "the lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places." We are no doubt living in the last moments of the church's history, and it is only conscious communion with the Lord that can keep one happy. If you meditate on the Lord, even through a heavy day's work, you will find joy.

"Rejoice evermore: pray without ceasing; in everything give thanks." Closer connection between these three than our souls are wont to acknowledge. Joy will ever rise in proportion to prayer and thanksgiving.

But for all this we need strength; and the "joy of the Lord is strength." It being the joy of the Lord, and Christ being always that, the result must be that we are privileged and under obligation to rejoice always. There is not a moment in which He is not Master, and in which all circumstances are not perfectly under His control. We, as it were, uncrown Him therefore, if we do not rejoice. That we are completely dependent on Him is nothing to be deducted from the blessedness of this, whatever it imply as to weakness on our own part. The unceasing prayer to which the apostle here enjoins us is, of course, the confession of this; but if the expression of need, it is no less the expression of faith in Him, the incense of whose acceptability is in our prayers; so that in everything we can be bidden to give thanks also, as what is the will of God in Christ Jesus regarding us. The abundant provision that we have in Him — the perfect assurance of omnipotent love — shows indeed what He would have, who has given Christ for us. Can there be in this sunshine a fleck of inconsistency or mutability at all? There can be but one answer; and in this sense also we are "filled into all the fulness of God." Thus joy and thanksgiving are the fitting accompaniments with which the apostle connects that prayer by which we draw out of the infinite fulness, — the exhortation in which we hear Christ's own voice appealing to us: "Eat, O friends; drink, yea, drink abundantly, O beloved."

Nothing is to quench the believer's joy for it is occasioned by that which is eternal. Prayer is to be unceasing for the need is continuous, and access to the throne of grace is never closed on God's side. Prayer, and that attitude of soul of which prayer is the expression, is to be habitual. As for thanksgiving it should be rendered to God "in everything," inasmuch as we know that "all things work together for good to them that love God." Moreover it is God's will that we should be a thankful people, so that He may "inhabit" our praises, according to the spirit of Psalm 22:3. These things are all intensely individual.

(V. 4). Thirdly, we are exhorted to "Rejoice in the Lord alway." Already the Apostle has exhorted us to rejoice in the Lord, but now again he can say, not only "Rejoice," but rejoice always. However painful our circumstances, however great the opposition of the enemy, and however heartbreaking the failure among the Lord's people, in the Lord we can always rejoice. Of Him we can say "Thou remainest" and "Thou art the Same."