Three Words That Make It Possible for You to Rejoice

When Amy Carmichael left her home in Ireland to serve as a missionary in India, she embarked with joy upon a career as an itinerant evangelist. As part of a close-knit ministry team, she traveled from village to village, sharing Christ and seeing lives transformed. One campaign reached twenty thousand people, drawing large crowds who heard the gospel through an interpreter, and Amy was relentless in her drive to buy up every opportunity for evangelism. 

In her travels, Amy discovered a practice in the Hindu temples from which she, with her Victorian-era sensibilities, would have longed to “turn away with burning eyes, and only for the children’s sake could [she] ever look again…” Families in financial straits or with an eye for gaining favor with “the gods” would surrender their children for service in the temple. There, the children were subjected to unspeakable evil in the immoral practices of Hindu worship. 

With knowledge came responsibility, and Amy began to sense God leading her in a new direction toward a quiet and hidden ministry to these trafficked temple children–one that she would never have chosen for herself. As she employed creative (and often dangerous!) ways to rescue temple children, it became obvious that her ministry had turned a corner. God’s assignment to become “Amma” (“mother”) to a houseful of sons and daughters arrived as both a surprise and a struggle to a woman who had envisioned herself serving in a more public ministry and using a completely different set of spiritual gifts. 

In Christ, Amy found grace to receive God’s assignment, and thousands of children were rescued from a life of temple prostitution, from “things that darkened the sunlight,”  and were given a safe home through the ministry she began and which continues as an orphanage even today. Throughout her life, she quoted the Tamil proverb, “Children tie the mother’s feet,” but was also careful to add, “We let our feet be tied for love of Him whose feet were pierced.” 

Throughout her life, #AmyCarmichael quoted the Tamil proverb, “Children tie the mother’s feet,” but was also careful to add, “We let our feet be tied for love of Him whose feet were pierced.” 

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“In the Lord” 

The power that enabled Amy to embrace the plan of God came from the same deep well the Apostle Paul drank from when he wrote these words from a Roman jail: 

“Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4) 

The final chapter of Paul’s letter to the church in Philippi offers readers the gift of three words that reveal Paul’s power source for obedience:  “In the Lord.” Paul lived with a vivid awareness that he was “in the Lord,” and it was his life’s mission to pass that lifestyle along to his spiritual children.  

When he told Philippian believers to rejoice, he was advising a persecuted church to live above her circumstances. It’s crucial to note here that Paul did not simply say, “Rejoice always.” This would have been impossible without the Lord, for true joy is a fruit of the Spirit, and we do not manufacture it on our own. 

It’s likely that Paul, with his deep roots in the Hebrew Scriptures, would have called to mind numerous Old Testament exhortations to rejoice, and every single one cites the Lord as the believer’s source of joy:

“Although the fig tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls:  Yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation.”  (Habakkuk 3:17-18)

 “The meek also shall increase their joy in the Lord, and the poor among men shall rejoice in the Holy One of Israel.”  (Isaiah 29:19)

“Behold, I make of you a threshing sledge, new, sharp, and having teeth; you shall thresh the mountains and crush them, and you shall make the hills like chaff; you shall winnow them, and the wind shall carry them away, and the tempest shall scatter them. And you shall rejoice in the Lord; in the Holy One of Israel you shall glory. (Isaiah 41:15-16)

When facing their enemies, when meekly accepting the plan of God, and even when living in times of famine, God’s people were marked by their ability to rejoice in God alone. Of course, this doesn’t mean Paul or the Old Testament prophets ignored their surroundings and lapsed into a Pollyanna-ish form of denial. In spite of all they lacked, they found joy in their assurance of God’s sovereignty and his good purposes behind their circumstances, in fellowship with God as their ultimate treasure,  and in anticipation of the spiritual benefits that would come to them through endurance.

A Testimony of Joy in the Lord

We know from Paul’s testimony in Philippians 4:10 that he practiced what he preached for he “rejoiced in the Lord greatly,” even though he was coming out of a season of lack. Rather than giving in to bitterness over the apparent lapse in the Philippian church’s giving to his ministry, he chose to “rejoice in the Lord” because their care of him had “flourished again.” 

Having road-tested the joy that comes “in the Lord” gave Paul confidence and credentials to speak into the lives of his spiritual children.

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Having road-tested the joy that comes “in the Lord” gave Paul confidence and credentials to speak into the lives of his spiritual children. In Philippians 4:1, he lovingly exhorted them to “stand fast in the Lord” and then immediately turned his attention to a situation that needed correction:

“I beseech Euodias, and beseech Syntyche, that they be of the same mind in the Lord.”

The tendency of these two sisters in Christ to be at loggerheads was, apparently, common knowledge since Paul addressed it in a public letter without further explanation, and his concern speaks to the importance of unity within the body of Christ. When the church is persecuted from without, it’s essential that there be a spirit of cooperation within. Paul, in requesting that they find common ground “in the Lord,” implies not only that there is power in the Lord to do what might normally be impossible, but also that this is a behavior to be expected of those who are “in the Lord”–even if it would not be expected of those who are not in God’s family.

The Apostle Paul would have had no patience with the present-day myth that it is only the “varsity level” Christian who lives by the commands of Scripture and finds his greatest joy in Christ. On the contrary, we “stand fast,” rejoice, and live in unity not because of who we are but, rather, because of where we are and whose we are. Because we are “in the Lord,” we have resources that transcend our own weak wills.

The power and calling of a sovereign Lord that enabled Amy Carmichael to serve selflessly is available to us today. As head of the orphanage she founded, it was her role to exhort the discouraged and to step into the “Euodias-and-Syntyche moments” between staff members, and she did that with the no-nonsense admonition to “hold one another to the highest!” May that be the rallying cry that rings in our hearts as we read the commands of Scripture with the knowledge that “in the Lord” we are upheld and enabled to greet every situation–and even every believer!–with joy.

Holding You in the Light,

Believers can “stand fast,” rejoice, and live in unity not because of who we are but, rather, because of where we are and whose we are. Because we are “in the Lord,” we have resources that transcend our own weak wills.

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Resources
That Way and No Other. Amy Carmichael, Plough Publishing House, 2020.
A Chance to Die. Elisabeth Elliot, Fleming H. Revell, 1987.

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