Be joyful always;

pray continually;

give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus (1 Thess 5:16-18).

Note the last part of this scripture: “for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” God wants to be with you more than you desire to be with him. In fact, he is with you all the time, but he wants you to have faith in it. That is why the above scripture urges you to do the three things—to “be joyful always,” to “pray continually,” and to “give thanks in all circumstances.” In order to see the mechanism of how these three steps work for us, let us look at Ps 95:

Come, let us sing for joy to the Lord;

let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.

Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song (Ps 95).

Pay attention to the expressions like “let us sing for joy,” “let us shout aloud,” and “with thanksgiving.” It is through joy and thanksgiving that you go before God: note the expression, “let us come before him.” Then, v. 6 says:

Come, let us bow down in worship,

let us kneel before the Lord our Maker (v. 6).

Once you enter into God’s presence by being joyful and giving thanks to him, you can now worship him and pray to him. This means that if you are joyful always, and give thanks in all circumstances, you are in God’s presence all the time, and you can pray and worship him anytime.

While constant joy and invincible thanksgiving trigger God’s presence and activate his power, worries, fear and complaints impede his presence and deactivate his power. See the following verses:

Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me, though they had seen what I did (vv. 7-9).

If you are not familiar with the story of Meribah and Massah, read it. Try to understand how they tested and tried the Lord. In fact, many Christians, without knowing, are testing and trying God as they did. They have no joy, no victory, no faith and no blessing.

For forty years I was angry with that generation; I said, "They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known my ways." So I declared on oath in my anger, "They shall never enter my rest (vv. 10-11)."

It is interesting to see how differently people see things and come to react to the problems and needs they face. We often see that those with relatively small needs and problems worry about them more than those with bigger needs and more serious problems do. The way you see what is happening around you is very crucial because if you see it negatively, you will not be joyful or thankful. The above scripture tells us to be joyful always, and give thanks in all circumstances. How can we do that, though? Look at the following words of Jesus:

As he went along, he saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked him, "Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?" "Neither this man nor his parents sinned," said Jesus, "but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life (John 9:1-3).”