Christ's Joy.

Joh 15:10  If ye keep my commandments, ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. 

Joh 15:11  These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. 

Joh 15:12  This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. 

Love one another and our Savior's JOY MIGHT remain in us, and if our Savior's Joy remains in us our JOY MIGHT be full.

How do we love another?

1Co 13:4  Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 

1Co 13:5  Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; 

1Co 13:6  Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; 

1Co 13:7  Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. 

Love suffers long.

Love is kind.

Love doesn't envy.

Love doesn't vaunt.

Love isn't puffed up.

Love does not rejoice in evil.

Love rejoices in truth.

Love bears all things.

Love believes all things.

Love hopes all things.

Love endures all things.

So if we are loving one another it means a lot more than our saying we love someone. It's easy to use the word love, but much harder to truly love. We often agree that we hurt those we love, but it shouldn't be that way, should it? If we want Jesus' JOY in us so that our JOY might be full, we need to LOVE one another and it must be loving in truth, it must be the love of our Savior.

LOVE suffers.

LOVE bears ALL things.

LOVE endures ALL things.

Yet we don't want this sort of love. We don't want to suffer, we don't want to bear unpleasantness, or endure bad situations. We do all we can to eliminate our suffering, any unpleasantness, and any thing that is hard to endure. Yet we LOVE when we are suffering, bearing, and enduring. We want to stop loving, we try to harden our hearts against those who cause us to suffer, we strive to protect ourselves from being hurt by closing ourselves off.

Our Savior's joy in us, so that it is possible for our joy to be full, tells us we need to LOVE one another.

Our LOVE should not be held on the condition we are never hurt by our loved one, that we never suffer from something a loved one does.  We only have control over our love not another's. If the ones we love do not love us back do we in turn stop loving? NO, never.  We, like our Savior, all by HIS grace through the Holy Spirit, must be willing to lay down our lives for others. If we are willing to lay down our lives, shouldn't we be willing to lay down the self-love in ourselves that keeps us from loving others MORE than ourselves? Aren't we often hurt by others when we focus on ourselves telling ourselves that we don't deserve to be hurt? If we let go of self- and put on Christ instead, Christ would continue to love even as the abuse rains down upon Him.

God- help us to love others as You would have us love them, so Christ's joy might be in us and our joy might be full!