Abide In Christ
by Andrew Murray
Day 25
That
Your Joy May Be Full
“These
things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain (or abide) in
you, and that your joy may be full” (John 15:11)
Abiding
fully in Christ is a life of exquisite and overflowing happiness. As
Christ gets more complete possession of the soul, it enters into the
joy of its Lord. His own joy, the joy of heaven, becomes the soul’s
own joy in full measure as an everabiding portion. Just as joy on
earth is everywhere connected with the vine and its fruit, so joy is
an essential characteristic of the life of the believer who fully
abides in Christ, the heavenly Vine.
We
all know the value of joy. It alone is the proof that what we have
really satisfies the heart. As long as duty, or self-interest, or
other motives influence me, men cannot know what the object of my
pursuit or possession is really worth to me. But when it gives me
joy, and they see my delight in it, they know that to me at least it
is a treasure. Therefore, there is nothing so attractive as joy, no
preaching so persuasive as the sight of hearts made glad. Only this
makes gladness such a mighty element in the Christian character:
there is no proof of the reality of God's love and the blessing He
bestows, which men so soon feel the power of, as when the joy of God
overcomes all the trials of life. And for the Christian's own
welfare, joy is no less indispensable. The joy of the Lord is his
strength. Confidence, courage, and patience find their inspiration in
joy. With a heart full of joy no work can be wearisome, and no burden
can depress. God Himself is strength and song.
Let
us hear what the Savior says of the joy of abiding in Him. He
promises us His own joy: "My joy." As the whole parable
refers to the life His disciples should have in Him when ascended to
heaven, the joy is that of His resurrection life. This is clear from
those other words of His: "I will see you again, and your heart
will rejoice, and your joy will no man take from you” (John
16:22). It was only with the resurrection and its glory that the
power of the never-changing life began, and only in it that the
never-ceasing joy could rise. With it was fulfilled the word:
"Therefore God, Your God, hath anointed You with the oil of
gladness more than Your companions” (Psalm 45:7). The day of His
crowning was the day of the gladness of His heart. That joy of His
was the joy of a work fully and forever completed, the joy of the
Father's bosom regained, and the joy of souls redeemed. These are the
elements of His joy. As we abide in Him, we are made partakers with
Him.
The
believer shares so fully His victory and His perfect redemption, that
his faith can sing the conqueror's song without ceasing: "Thanks
be to God, who always leads (me) to triumph” (2 Cor. 2:14). As the
fruit of this, there is the joy of the undisturbed dwelling in the
light of the Father's love — there is not a cloud to intervene if
the abiding is unbroken. And then, with this joy in the love of the
Father, as a love received, there is the joy of the love of souls, as
love going out and rejoicing over the lost. Abiding in Christ,
penetrating into the very depths of His life and heart, seeking for
the most perfect oneness, these three streams of His joy flow into
our hearts. Whether we look backward and see the work He has done, or
upward and see the reward He has in the Father's love that passes
knowledge, or forward in the continual elevation of joy as sinners
are brought home, His joy is ours. With our feet on Calvary, our eyes
on the Father's countenance, and our hands helping sinners home, we
have His joy as our own.
And
then He speaks of this joy as abiding — a joy that is never to
cease or to be interrupted for a moment: "That my joy may
(abide) in you." "Your joy no man takes from you” (John
16:22). This is what many Christians cannot understand. Their view of
the Christian life is that it is a succession of changes between joy
and sorrow. And they appeal to the experiences of a man like the
Apostle Paul, as a proof of how much there may be of weeping, sorrow,
and suffering. They have not noticed just how Paul gives the
strongest evidence of this unceasing joy. He understood the paradox
of the Christian life as the combination at one and the same moment
of all the bitterness of earth and all the joy of heaven. "As
sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Cor. 6:10). These precious
golden words teach us how the joy of Christ can overrule the sorrow
of the world, can make us sing while we weep, and can maintain in the
heart, even when cast down by disappointment or difficulties, a deep
consciousness of a joy that is unspeakable and full of glory. There
is only one condition: "I will see you again, and your heart
will rejoice, and your joy no one will take from you” (John 16:22).
The presence of Jesus, distinctly manifested, cannot help but give
joy. As we consciously abide in Him, how can our soul help but
rejoice and be glad? Even when weeping for the sins and the souls of
others, there is the fountain of gladness springing up in the faith
of His power and love to save.
And
this, His own joy abiding with us, He wants to be full. Of the full
joy our Savior spoke three times on the last night. Once here in the
Parable of the Vine: "These things I have spoken to you that
your joy may be full;" and every deeper insight into the
wonderful blessedness of being the branch of such a Vine confirms His
Word. Then He connects it with our prayers being answered: "Ask
and you will receive, that your joy may be full” (John 16:24). To
the spiritual mind, answered prayer is not only a means of obtaining
certain blessings, but something infinitely higher. It is a token of
our fellowship with the Father and the Son in heaven, of their
delight in us, and our having been admitted and having had a voice in
that wonderful interchange of love in which the Father and the Son
hold counsel, and decide the daily guidance of the children on earth.
To a soul abiding in Christ, which longs for manifestations of His
love, and which understands to take an answer to prayer for its true
spiritual value, as a response from the throne to all its utterances
of love and trust, the joy which it brings is truly unutterable. The
word is found true: "Ask and you will receive, that your joy may
be full." And then the Savior says, in His high-priestly prayer
to the Father, "These things I speak...that they may have my joy
fulfilled in themselves” (John 17:13). It is the sight of the great
High Priest entering the Father's presence for us, ever living to
pray and carry on His blessed work in the power of an endless life,
that removes every possible cause of fear or doubt, and gives us the
assurance and experience of a perfect salvation. Let the believer who
seeks, according to the teaching of John 15, to possess the full joy
of abiding in Christ, and according to John 16, the full joy of
prevailing prayer, press forward to the high-priestly prayer of John
17. Let him listen there to those wonderful words of intercession
spoken, that his joy may be full. Let him, as he listens to those
words, learn the love that even now pleads for him in heaven without
ceasing, the glorious objects for which it is pleading, and which
through its all-prevailing pleading are hourly being realized, and
Christ's joy will be fulfilled in him.
Christ's
own joy, abiding joy, fullness of joy — such is the portion of the
believer who abides in Christ. Why, oh, why is it that this joy has
so little power to attract? The reason is simply this: Men, yes,
even God's children, do not believe in it. Instead of the abiding in
Christ being looked upon as the happiest life that ever can be led,
it is regarded as a life of self-denial and of sadness. They forget
that the self-denial and the sadness are owing to the not abiding,
and that to those who once yield themselves unreservedly to abide in
Christ as a bright and blessed life, their faith comes true — the
joy of the Lord is theirs. The difficulties all arise from the want
of the full surrender to a full abiding.
Child
of God, who seeks to abide in Christ, remember what the Lord says. At
the close of the Parable of the Vine, He adds these precious words:
"These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may (abide) in
you, and that your joy may be full." Claim the joy as part of
the branch life — not the first or chief part, but as the blessed
proof of the sufficiency of Christ to satisfy every need of the soul.
Be happy. Cultivate gladness. If there are times when it comes by
itself, and your heart feels the unutterable joy of the Savior's
presence, praise God for it, and seek to maintain it. If at other
times your feelings are dull, and the experience of the joy not such
as you would wish it, still praise God for the life of unutterable
blessedness to which you have been redeemed. In this, too, the word
holds good: "According to your faith let it be to you” (Matt.
9:29). As you claim all the other gifts in Jesus, always claim this
one too — not for your own sake, but for His and the Father's
glory. "My joy in you;" "that my joy may abide in
you;" "my joy fulfilled in themselves” (John 17:13) —
these are Jesus' own words. It is impossible to take Him wholly and
heartily, and not to get His joy too. Therefore, "Rejoice in the
Lord, always: and again I say, Rejoice!” (Phil. 4:4)
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