Collegiate Day of Prayer Global: 40-Day Prayer Guideনমুনা

Day 37: The Joy of Jesus

By Jon Hietbrink (Jon serves as a Vice President with InterVarsity/USA, is a co-founder of the EveryCampus coalition, and is the co-author of Reviving Mission: Awakening to the Everyday Movement of God.)

At that time, Jesus, full of joy through the Holy Spirit, said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows who the Son is except the Father, and no one knows who the Father is except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” Then he turned to his disciples and said privately, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.”

– Luke 10:21-23

As good as it is to live lives of impact, the best part of following Jesus isn’t experiencing a life of purpose—it’s encountering a person.

Though this story starts with a broad, expansive frame—the 72 disciples returning to Jesus, surrounded by those who had been impacted by their ministry—as it continues, the focus narrows two different times. First, it narrows to Jesus “full of joy through the Holy Spirit” in the midst of the crowd—an arrestingly unique description found nowhere else in the whole of the Gospel record. Then, it narrows a second time when Luke says, “He turned to his disciples and said privately, ‘Blessed are the eyes that see what you see.’”

No doubt, the disciples saw and heard a lot in that moment. As they looked around they saw people who’d been healed by the power of God through their touch, transformed by the truth of God articulated in their preaching, and delivered from darkness by the authority of God in their words. And yet, the passage suggests that the burgeoning movement swelling all around them was more secondary than primary—more background than foreground.

In the most immediate sense, what they saw and heard when Jesus spoke wasn’t the growing momentum of the crowd or the cohesive affection of their community. What they beheld when Jesus said, “Blessed are the eyes that see what you see,” was the joyful face of Jesus—the image of the invisible God smiling back at them.

Indeed, it’s beholding the face of Jesus that is the end of our story: “The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads” (Revelation 22:3-4).

Prayer Points:

• Ask Jesus to reveal His joy to you—that you would behold His joyful smile.
• Pray that God’s people will live lives that are saturated with the joy of Jesus
• Pray that Jesus’ joy will empower us—as everyday missionaries—to embody the Kingdom wherever we go!

Adapted from Reviving Mission: Awakening to the Everyday Movement of God ©2024 by Linson Daniel, Jonathan Hietbrink, Eric Rafferty, and InterVarsity Christian Fellowship/USA. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press.