“These things I have
spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.”—John 15:11
The born-again believer experiences the blessing of joy when they abide in Christ. This joy is not based on emotional highs or
lows, blessings or tests and trials, but on our relationship and fellowship
with Christ.
Just like we get to know about people by being around them that same thing
happens when we have fellowship with Christ.
We get an understanding of Christ and His character by fellowshipping with
Him through reading the Scriptures, prayer and fellowship with other believers.
John 15 verses 1-10 instructs us about abiding in Christ, bearing fruit,
having our prayers answered, and continuing in Christ's love and obeying Him as
true disciples. These verses also points
to one final climactic blessing: joy.
What a tremendous promise!
Have you ever thought that every bit of the Christian life is designed for
our joy? Jesus wanted the joy He
experienced in fellowship with the Father to remain in His disciples. In verse
10, He said, "If ye keep my
commandments, ye shall abide in my love, even as I have kept my Father's
commandments, and abide in his love." Jesus is the example of the perfect abiding
life resulting in full joy. In the midst of all that Jesus suffered, He
still had full joy because of His
abiding relationship with the Father. When
you abide in Him, you'll have the same joy.
When David sinned and no longer sensed the presence of God, he cried out, "Restore unto me the joy of thy
salvation" (Psalm 51:12). He
did not lose his salvation; he just lost the joy of it because he had ceased to abide in the fullest sense.
Peter refers to abiding joy as "joy unspeakable and full of
glory" (1 Peter 1:8). That is
the kind of joy that Jesus had and
that is the kind of joy that can belong to a Christian.
The Father’s desire for you is that your joy should be so full that it has a controlling influence on the rest of her or his life. Today, if you are not experiencing the
fullness of Christ’s joy in your
life ask the Father to remove anything that is standing in the way of your joy and to restore it.
Prayer—Father, so many times I have let the things
of this world block and rob me of my joy.
I ask You to remove any obstacle that stands in my way of receiving your
true joy, and I ask You to restore to me the joy of my salvation, in Jesus
Name. Amen.
