Need your Joy back?

“These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.  This is My commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down one’s life for his friends. You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you.” – John 15:11-15

God instructed me to search the Word for the phrase “My Joy” today.  This is where it lead me.

How wonderful that Jesus Christ would be concerned not only for our salvation, which He gave His life for, and put down His crown in Heaven to come to provide us, but He also wants us to have that same JOY as He had! He then tells us what it takes to have that heavenly Joy on earth. 

I’m just going to say it.  Seeing and hearing all the drama and hardships within relationships these days, we all – self included - need to take His advice and find the Joy that He had.  Seriously, I wonder if we grasp the worth of what He’s saying?  Do we understand that NO ONE has ever lived with the adversity and hatred that was spewed out on Jesus?  And yet, He loved us all.  Yet, He had JOY.  Don’t we all want that?

Joy isn’t the same thing as happiness.  Happiness is based on events.  I can be unhappy on a bad hair day.  But JOY – it has roots deep in our soul.  JOY is not determined by events.  Your JOY isn’t up for grabs when people put you down or you feel slighted.  JOY is that deep down peace and ‘all is right in the world’ feeling you have in your soul.

Jesus breaks it down for us by first saying that we must have peace through selfless actions for each other (“love one another as I have loved you”).  When’s the last time you did something for someone else without ulterior motives or anything to gain?  If you can’t remember, today is a good day to do that.  Find a total stranger and just determine to put a smile on their face.  There’s a unique feeling you get that is fueled by love when you know you’ve improved someone else’s day.  Try it and see.

But Jesus goes even further to tell us how to be His friend, and be in unbroken fellowship with Him.  It’s pretty simple – do as He has taught and is teaching.  He says we’re His friends “if you do whatever I command you.”  The Holy Spirit has been given to us that have accepted His salvation as our guide and our measurement of truth.  Listen to His Spirit in you and follow that lead. 

If you follow the Holy Spirit’s lead….you won’t be as easily taken down by what others say or do because you WON’T CARE!  People’s opinions become very small in the light of what the Holy Spirit of God requires.  Ask yourself instead, “but, is God happy with me in this matter?”  Release yourself from public opinion.  It is a prison cell without a door.

Instead, study God’s word to find approval. 2 Timothy 2:15 says “Study to show thyself approved unto God, a workman who needed not be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth.”  Get rid of the desires to please people by feeling no shame through pleasing God.  In the end, people’s opinion will not be the judge of your life – God’s opinion will.  I think we all place too much value on pleasing people, and when it becomes more important than pleasing God, they become our lord and master.  There is no Joy to be found in pleasing people, because it’s here today and gone tomorrow.  Instead, follow Christ’s instructions, and do whatever HE commands you and has taught you.

 

Joy is described as “a feeling of great pleasure and happiness”, and is even said to cause “tears of joy”, to bring jubilation, triumph, and delight.  Are you living with joy in your day to day life?