my joy is complete

I want to convey just what is in my heart today and please bear with me if I seem all over the place. I have started this blog a thousand different ways and when I went to EP frustrated and then started preaching he told me to shut my mouth and write it..here goes…

I’m having to deal with some things today that I just don’t like dealing with. It happens. But, as I was praying about it a reoccuring theme kept running through my head, my joy is complete in the Lord. My JOY??? I wasn’t feeling joyful, I was crying….so I decided to seek out the scripture that was repeating itself.

John 15:9-12

⁹ “As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. ¹⁰ If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.
¹¹ “These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full. ¹² This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.

So many things going on in this scripture. First, nine and ten give us the requirements to have this full joy. To remain in God’s love, we must obey his commands. Hence, we must be staying in His Word. We must be reading, hearing, doing, and studying this Word of Life. How can we possibly obey if we don’t know what we are to obey, right? Verse 11 gives us the result of abiding in His love by obeying these commands — OUR JOY MAY BE FULL!!! How cool, right?? To be full of JOY! Joy in this scripture is the greek word chara – happiness, gladness, rejoicing!!! (I certainly wasn’t feeling like rejoicing).

Verse 12 (and later verse 17) tell us his command, “Love one another.” So when you are loving others, you are enabling this completion of JOY in your life.

Back to today, I was not loving my situation and I was not loving the people involved. I was filled with envy, selfishness, and pride (not love characteristics according to 1 corinthians 13:5-6). By reading this I was reminded, by loving those people, by ridding myself of the selfishness and pride, my joy would be full. I was hindering the Lord from working in me–from receiving full joy.

By changing my heart – by obeying his command to love others, my JOY will be complete. It isn’t always easy, but that isn’t to concern us. God will handle the details….our job is simply to love through it.