He promises us in John 15 that our joy will be complete

Tuesday, February 22

I am not sure why the Lord seems to be really pounding me with this passage this week, but I continue to study it and find peace in His promise that in Him our joy will be complete. Oh how He loves us! I am working with a girl in my ministry that is on her way to experiencing this new life as she follows Christ. I am incredibly impatient as I watch her reach for a peer group that is not in line with her new life in Christ and I see the desire in her to want everything that is right for her life, but there are many tempting relationships and opinions that surround her each day. I wish that I could scoop her up and fix everything - and show her what lies ahead, but the trust and relationship she has with God belongs to her and there is nothing that I can do, other than disciple, as she figures it all out. What a blessing to see the joy from Him enter into her life as she accepts this amazing gift of a new life and new design for her life that has been waiting for her. She just lights up a room and every moment with her as she takes these little steps in the right direction is a real life manifestation of the joy that He promises for us if we just Trust in Him. I can not disciple her apart from Him - and I have a real responsibility to love her, and disciple her, and to recognize every opportunity that He places before me to enlarge this discipleship territory to make His glory shine even greater. 

Every day the Lord blesses me with such small snapshots of what lies ahead, and all of it matters to Him and He promises that we will bear fruit - He promises prosperity. In this passage in John we see that God chose us, and chose us to love, and requires us to love, and this women's ministry, one by one, He is reaching down and rescuing these ladies and these families one at a time and using just a couple of women - me and Stephanie - to do it. Every person can make a difference. But apart from God - none of us can make a difference at all. None of us are doing anything that matters apart from Him - but each of us in Him can use our jobs, our gifts, our money, our relationships for His glory. That is what we are called to do - and without accepting this calling we are forfeiting - literally - the blessings that God is holding for us. If we do not dedicate the time each day to become more like him and less like us, we are simply dissolving some truly amazing experiences and fullness of joy - and missing completely out on what matters most - and that is His glory and promise and being disciples to others. 

Ask yourself today - "Am I the branch that is tossed aside that withers? Or am I the branch that bears fruit and brings joy" He tells us that His joy will be in us - which is a promise that nothing about our life can fail in Him because what matters is joy and fullness in Christ - and it is free and freely given and without it the fruit we bear is meaningless by His measure.

 The Vine and the Branches

 ¹ “I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. ² He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes^[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. ³ You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. ⁴ Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.    ⁵ “I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. ⁶ If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. ⁷ If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. ⁸ This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
   ⁹ “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. ¹⁰ If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. ¹¹ I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. ¹² My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. ¹³ Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. ¹⁴ You are my friends if you do what I command. ¹⁵ I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. ¹⁶ You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. ¹⁷ This is my command: Love each other.

The World Hates the Disciples

    ¹⁸ “If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. ¹⁹ If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. ²⁰ Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’^[b] If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. ²¹ They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. ²² If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. ²³ Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. ²⁴ If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. ²⁵ But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.’^[c]

The Work of the Holy Spirit

    ²⁶ “When the Advocate comes, whom I will send to you from the Father—the Spirit of truth who goes out from the Father—he will testify about me. ²⁷ And you also must testify, for you have been with me from the beginning.