To Joy (part 1)
I grew up believing that the focus of obeying Scripture was to cement our place in God’s future kingdom forever.
It gave off strong whiffs of “You’d better obey, or else,” making obedience a condition to be met to have any hope of a future. But didn’t Jesus himself say in John 15:10, that “If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love”? There’s a big “IF” in there, which could easily be taken to mean: “I’ll love you – but only IF you obey me.”
And if Jesus had stopped at that point and said no more, it would be understandable if his disciples thought his love for them was conditioned on their obedience to him. And also understandable if I (and it seems many other Christians too) took it to mean we had to win God’s favour by our obedience to earn us a place in eternity.
But Jesus didn’t stop there. He went on to say in verse 11, “I have told you this” – “this” referring back to “if you obey my commands you’ll remain in my love” – I have told you this, “so that my JOY may be in you and that your joy may be complete.” Jesus’ focus for us sticking like glue to his teachings, therefore, was for the joy it would give us. Well, that’s a switch, isn’t it?
And a really big switch for anyone wondering how on earth obedience and joy can go together, when obedience has such a negative tone to it in this world. But Jesus wasn’t talking about this world, he was talking about his world, where definitions and meanings have totally different connotations. Obedience wasn’t a threat, for instance, like it is in this world, where you’d better obey the laws, chum, or else.
But in Jesus’ world obedience brings joy. It can be tough obeying him, yes, because many of his commands put the bar way above our ability to obey them, but that just proves he’s opening the windows to a totally different world, in which ‘impossible to obey’ commands are meant to bring joy. And there’s no explanation in this world for that, because joy in this world is based on human emotion, which is terribly short-lived when circumstances are tough.
But Jesus isn’t offering the world’s version of joy. He’s offering a switch to his joy in us. So how does it happen exactly, and how do we know we’re experiencing it too?…(continued on Wednesday)
Buck To Basics 