Joy Complete, to be Jesus’s Friend.

Take my heart Lord prone to wander and seal it for thy grace above. My heart is on the loose Lord – only you can fasten it upon yourself.

”Just as all the rest of you, every little cell in your body, your heart was sculpted by me, deep in your mother’s womb. My eye was on it as also on the rest of you as I planned our love story together. To promote that love and see it flourish growing as a beautiful bud into a full bloom drawing it ever nearer to Me here in the heavenly realms. That has given Me such pleasure and such joy as does every other true son and daughter in My kingdom. Yes your heart may be prone to wander, but your deep desire as I measure it, is to fix it on Me and so I am busy all the time moulding and drawing that deepest part of your motivation into our love story which will be brought to a climax when you come to meet Me Face-to-face.”

We pick up this beautiful relationship picture of a vine as we continue to read in John 15:7-17. Over all this Jesus reveals an important purpose of this relationship story: That Jesus’s joy in us will make our joy complete vs 11. It may be that we see our role in keeping our side of the relationship as a bit onerous, but Jesus wants it to be a continuous, growing experience of Joy for us. Hence Paul could say in Philippians, Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice. Let us look now at the various components of our relationship with Him as revealed in this section.

Firstly, Jesus’s promises: vs 9 He has loved us, just as the Father has loved us.

Vv 7, 16 Whatever we ask (within this relationship) He will give us.

Vs 14, We are His friends.

v 15, Everything He has learned from the Father He has revealed to us. This is a wonderful promise of the completeness of His word.

v 16, He chose us we did not choose Him. He has always taken the initiative in our love story.

v 16 He has appointed the place for us to be where we will be able to produce the most fruit.

Then within this relationship He has also pointed out what our responsibilities are to be: We are to remain in Him v 7, in His love v 9. This is revealed by us keeping His commands, v 10, 12.

By remaining in Him (I like the old translation ‘abide’, speaks of a whole lifestyle), we will be able to produce fruit. It seems as I stand back, that the ultimate purpose of His relationship is revealed by our producing fruit. He repeats this several times vv 2, 4, 5, 8, 16. In fact v16 sums it up “I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit – fruit that will last” . It is important to notice that while it is our responsibility to produce fruit, it is the natural result flowing from a healthy covenant relationship where we continue to abide in Jesus

He does not really explain exactly what He means by fruit except to emphasize the importance of Love. Taking and appreciating the Father’s love and demonstrating it by loving one another. This echoes His word in 13:5 “By this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” . It seems our life under the new covenant is covered by this command, from which all the other’s flow.

What an appeal, what a promise, what a joy to be able to be part of this. To have a real, viable relationship with the Living God through His Son who opened this way and sent His Spirit to mediate all this for us. I am almost overwhelmed by the thought of all this as it comes rushing in to my consciousness and understanding. Why don’t you meditate on it and allow the pictures to become part of your whole default being? And ….. let’s all keep abiding in Him. God bless till next week.