That Your Joy Might Be Full

The Feast

Jesus names his own teaching’s actual purpose here, not merely to convey correct information, but that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full. This reframes everything Jesus taught, the vine and branches, the commandments, the whole preceding passage, as aimed specifically at producing genuine, full joy.

This is worth examining against however much your own approach to Jesus’s teaching has treated it as primarily informational or obligatory, correct doctrine to be believed or difficult commands to be obeyed, while missing this stated purpose, joy, full joy, as the actual, intended outcome all of it was aimed toward.

Notice my joy might remain in you. This is not merely your own generated joy, produced through personal effort or positive thinking, but his joy, Christ’s own joy, remaining and taking residence within you, a genuinely different source than self-generated emotional effort, sourced instead in relationship with him.

Consider today whether Jesus’s teaching, whatever specific portion currently occupies your own attention, is genuinely producing the full joy he named as its actual purpose, or whether it has remained merely informational, missing this stated aim. Receive his own joy today, remaining in you, producing the fulness he specifically intended.