There is no joy quite like the joy we get when we're filled to the brim with the Holy Spirt as we engage in some ministry, and the outcomes are strong and good. Anytime I’ve dared to go out in pubic with a sign saying, “Want a Prayer?” I’ve experienced that. We think of living by faith, walking in radical trust as difficult. But so often when we actually do it, we are immediately blitzed by such euphoria, it’s a wonder we don’t make more of a habit of it. That seems to have been the experience of the seventy disciples Jesus sent out:
The seventy returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!’ He said to them, ‘I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.’
What the disciples exulted in was not only that they’d had human success – it was that they had felt the spiritual power Jesus had promised would be theirs. They had been able to exercise authority over demons and diseases, to navigate the welcome and unwelcome of different towns and households. And Jesus affirmed their sense. “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning” might have been his statement about a cosmic past event, or his recognition that his power was now working through his followers, and that spelled the end for the reign of evil and its master.
But he is also quick to say that such power and euphoria should not be the root of their joy – their inclusion in God’s realm for all eternity is where their sense of well-being should rest. And when we are rooted in that identity, as God’s chosen, delighted-in daughters and sons, we are paradoxically more able to take those leaps of faith in ministry that bring about more euphoria. It’s a wonderful cycle.
We do not have to undertake risky ministries to be loved by God; that gift is already ours. But when we step out from that belovedness to walk in Jesus’ name into places we cannot yet know, relying on resources we cannot yet see, we receive more gifts that God wants to give us. We receive the Spirit in such measure, so much peace and love and joy and purpose, we can’t wait to do more.
And when we all live like that, evil is done for good.
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