FULL JOY

“As the Father loved Me, I also have loved you; abide in My love. 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. 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.”
John 15:9-12

Father God loves us to the fullest and unconditionally. God is love and we should not be surprised that Jesus says that He loves us just as He is loved by His Father. The more we obey God, the more we prove our love to Him and the happier we become. As we try to please those that we love and we love to see them happy and smiling, we should also want to please God, to abide in Him all the time, to obey His leadership and to constantly communicate with Him through the Holy Spirit. If we ask the Holy Spirit to help us understand how much God loves us and to fill our hearts daily with His love, we will be able to truly love others, too.

Obeying the command of loving one another, is also beneficial for our own selves. You may wonder what I mean by that. Well, first of all, we are happier when we love, secondly, it is easier to forgive those that we love. When someone that we love hurts us, it is simply easier not to be offended or hurt by their words and actions than when someone else does it. Isn’t that true? We give grace to those we care for. The more we love people, the more of “Jesus’ full joy” fills our hearts. So, by loving others we become more blessed and live happier lives.

• Luke 10:27 So he answered and said, “‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and ‘your neighbor as yourself.’”

It is easier to obey the commandments when we love. The lawyer who came to test Jesus, understood that love is the core of God’s law. To love is the greatest commandment. To love God more than anything else and then to love our neighbor, as we read in Galatians 5:14 “For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

• Luke 11:4 “And forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who is indebted to us...”

 

• Colossians 3:13 bearing with one another, and forgiving one another, if anyone has a complaint against another; even as Christ forgave you, so you also must do.

Full joy has no room in the same heart with unforgiveness, frustration and discontent. The Word of God teaches us to forgive, as we want to be forgiven by the Heavenly Father, who does it fully, unconditionally, and keeps no records of what He has forgiven. God forgives us when we sincerely ask Him to, because of the sacrifice of Jesus who cancels the guilt of sin. When we are discontented, we fall more easily into the traps of the enemy because we no longer hear when the Holy Spirit warns us of danger. The more we keep our peace and we choose to be thankful to the Lord for what we have and what awaits for us in heaven, the more we will enjoy the full joy that Jesus promised us.


Carmen Pușcaș