The path to joy

According to 1 John 1:3-4, we’re on the path to “complete joy” when we’re in “fellowship with the Father and his Son.”

So how does fellowship with the Father and his Son come about? John could answer that, because early on in John’s life Jesus told him how, and again for the same purpose – “so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete,” John 15:11. 

The explanation Jesus gave is in the previous two verses. In verse 9 he says, “I’ve loved you like the Father’s loved me. Hang on to that. Live every day knowing I love you as deeply and always as the Father has loved me.” That’s Jesus’ first key to how fellowship comes about: it’s simply knowing he loves us that much.  

But how is that realization kept front and centre in our minds when life gets rough? Jesus’ answer in verse 10 is just as simple: “If you keep my commandments you will live in my love just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and live in his love.” Jesus’ second key to how fellowship comes about, then, is making it our life’s purpose to obey what Jesus taught, because no matter what happens we’ll always know we’re loved.

Which is where the Holy Spirit comes in, because not only does he keep us sensitive to what Jesus taught (John 14:26), he also keeps us knowing we’re loved (1 John 3:24). The Holy Spirit of God, then, is keeping us on the path of fellowship leading to joy, always confirming Jesus’ promise to us in Luke 11:28, “Blessed (and full of joy) are those who hear the word of God and obey it (put it into practice, 8:21).” 

Which John also confirms in 1 John 3:21-22, that “we have confidence before God and receive from him anything we ask, because we obey his commands and do what pleases him.” And that, as John adds in verse 24, is what leads to fellowship with God, because “Those who obey his commands live in him, and he in them.” 

Or as Jesus put it in John 14:23, “If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” Working backwards through that verse, then, we have the path to joy: joy comes from fellowship with the Father and Son, which comes from knowing God loves us, and obeying him. 

Since obedience is so important to joy, then, “What obedience pleases God most?”….(next blog)