This past week, on a particularly dreary afternoon, I lit an assortment of candles just to watch them glow.
My little chorus-line of flames sparkled and danced above mismatched candle holders and suddenly, the day didn’t seem quite as gloomy.
But as the day went on, I noticed that some of the candles were much shorter-lived than others.
One white candle, for example, burned down rapidly. But a pair of beige candlesticks burned slowly and steadily and continued shining bright when the other candles had faded.
Now, maybe you’ve never paid much attention to candles. But have you ever noticed that something similar is true of the joy and happiness we experience in this life?
Not all of it is lasting.
Some moments of happiness shine brightly, but burn out quickly— and we’re left right back in the dark when they fade.
Reaching the top of the ladder, escaping into distraction or the thrill of something new… these are all examples of fast-burning happiness. They’re good while they last, they just don’t last very long.
But when happiness burns out, there is still a joy that remains for us, as believers.
It burns slow and steady and shines just as brightly in our suffering as it does in our celebrating.
Listen to what Jesus says in John 15:9-11:
Even as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love. I have spoken these things to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be made full. (WEB)
In these verses, Jesus points us to a joy that can remain in us. And I don’t know about you, but I want more of that. I want a joy that can’t be snuffed out by life’s sorrows.
So how do we reach this special kind of joy? Three actions jump out at me from this passage.
Remember the truth about Jesus’ love.
Sometimes in life, we can start to think wrong thoughts about God’s love.
When life is hard, we wonder if His love is real. We fume, “If He really loved me, this wouldn’t be happening.”And when we fail, we wonder if His love is secure. We berate ourselves, “Well, now I’ve really done it. He’ll never accept me now.”
But Jesus’ words set our thinking straight. “Even as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you,” He said in verse 9.
So think about it…Did the suffering Jesus’ experienced mean that God didn’t love Him? No. God’s love was actually was working out an incredible plan through Jesus’ suffering. And could God the Father ever stop loving Jesus, His Son? No. That would be impossible.
And so, the same is true for us. Jesus loves us the way God loves Him—unwaveringly and to the utmost. There is joy in this.
But there’s a difference between knowing that Jesus loves us and actually remaining in His love, which is what Jesus calls us to do here.
Remain in Jesus’ love.
Jesus said, “Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love, even as I have kept my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.”
Jesus is calling us to intentionally stay close, in that love relationship with Him. He’s inviting us to make His love the home we never go out from.
And yet so often, we do find ourselves wandering from His love, don’t we?
I know I do.
When my wants conflict with his will, I go my own way.
When the shiny distractions of this world promise escape from stress, I get sidetracked.
And before long, I wake up far from a sense of His love and wholly dissatisfied by what I’ve been chasing.
It’s not that God has stopped loving me. It’s that I’ve wandered instead of remaining with Him, the Source of my joy.
You see, these verses teach an important principle: When we remain in Jesus’ love, His joy remains in us. Our joy is directly tied to our proximity to Jesus.
So in light of this, what will we do to stay close to Jesus today?
Are there things we will to say “no” to because they create distance? And are there things we will say “yes” to because they grow our intimacy with Him?
This passage invites us to do both of these things—to push back on the things creating distance and to intentionally invest in drawing closer to Jesus.
In the short-run, this may look like giving up some temporary thrills—those quickly-burning moments of happiness. But if we persist and remain in Jesus’ love we will experience a slow-burning joy that will outlast happiness and that cannot be snuffed out by our circumstances.
Receive Jesus’ joy.
In verse 11, Jesus said, “I have spoken these things to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be made full.”
This, I think, has to be my favorite part of the passage because it specifies what kind of joy will remain in us.
It’s Jesus’ joy!
This is how I envision it: As we remain in Jesus’ love—staying close to Him, enjoying Him and loving Him back—the Spirit of Jesus that lives inside of us rejoices. And as His joy bubbles up, it overflows into our souls and fills us up with joy.
So, joy isn’t something we have to muster up. It isn’t a forced smile we have to wear to prove we’re Christians. Joy comes as a natural byproduct of loving and being loved by Jesus.
Jesus’ joy doesn’t mean we’ll always feel happy–after all, even Jesus Himself wept–but it means that no matter what we’ll always be loved. And the closer we get to our Savior, the greater reason we’ll have for rejoicing.
Even on the particularly dreary days, when happiness has been snuffed out by our circumstances, Jesus’ joy remains. It bubbles up as we draw close to Him and it fills us up.
May we remain in His love today.
This devotion is based on one of the Scriptures from my reading plan: “Accessible Joy” To receive a copy of the reading plan (and future reading plans), sign up for the email list below. Hope you’ll follow along!
©2024 Paige K. Burhans
Scriptures taken from the World English Bible. Public Domain.
