The Switch…

To Joy (part 4) 

According to Jesus, the key to joy is being able to love as God loves. And the reason he had disciples was for them to learn and live that love, and not just for the joy it would bring them, but also to bring joy to others. 

He made this clear to them in John 15:16, when he told them, “You did not choose me, I chose you to go and bear fruit.” To begin with, then, it was never the disciples’ initiative to follow him; it was his. And the reason he’d chosen them – or appointed them – was to enable them “to go and bear fruit that will last.” So the reason Jesus spent all night praying for who his disciples would be (Luke 6:12-16), was to have a group of people who would continue and expand his work of permanently impacting people’s lives in a wonderful way.  

And he’d appointed them to do that. This was now their life’s work, appointed by Jesus himself, to have a surefire – guaranteed to succeed – impact in other people’s lives. 

But through the likes of them? How? They weren’t anything special, they were just ordinary folk living very ordinary lives having little to no noticeable or permanent impact of any value on other people’s lives. But in verse 16 Jesus offered the solution to that, because “the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name.”

You mean, the Father God himself will provide whatever we need to have a wonderful lasting impact on other people’s lives? Well, yes, if it’s asked for in Jesus’ name. And in Jesus’ name was easy for his disciples to understand, because it was Jesus who’d appointed them, so it was in his name, or following his orders, that was their reason for seeking the Father’s help. And if that was their reason, to follow what Jesus had appointed them for, it was absolutely guaranteed the Father would answer. Whatever help they needed to impact people’s lives like Jesus did, was theirs for the asking. 

What a switch, then, from being ordinary folk just doing what ordinary folk do, to a new life in such close contact with God that he would personally give them whatever love and joy they needed to bring love and joy into other people’s lives too…(continued on Wednesday)