The Mirror of the Word and other works by C.E. White can be purchased on her website, cewhitebooks.com or on Amazon.

“Now the seventy–two returned with joy, saying, ‘Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name!’ And he said to them, ‘. . . do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are recorded in heaven.’”

—Luke 10:17–20

Our human disposition is to get excited about visible success and power. It impresses others, and it makes us feel good about ourselves. 

But Jesus says this isn’t where were to place our joy. As he does everywhere else in the Bible, he reminds us to focus on the things that can’t be seen (2 Corinthians 4:18)—our assurance of salvation and our relationship with God.

Rejoicing in anything else will always tempt us away from God. We may be tempted to pride which feels good in the moment, but that pride will turn to feelings of shame and inadequacy if the same type of success does not come again. Or perhaps if we don’t see the same kinds of outcomes in the future, we’ll begin to doubt our own faith or—even worse—the faithfulness of God.

Jesus says to focus on our secure eternity with him and to let that be the source of our joy.

It’s easy to get excited and caught up in outward validation and evidence, but our concentration should be on maintaining our own inward relationship with Christ. That can never be distorted by earthly motives, and without it, everything that looks like power and success in the world will actually be wood, hay, and stubble (1 Corinthians 3:12).

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