Experience Christ's joy to the full by loving others

The past few weeks we have been learning about the importance of bearing fruit for God. There are some fundamental things that we have discovered in God’s Word together.

Thus far we have learned that God is the gardener, Jesus is the vine, and we are the branches if we have accepted Christ as Saviour. We also gained the understanding that to get from no fruit to fruit… God lifts us up. To get from fruit to more fruit, God prunes us so that we can reprioritize our lives for His glory. To get from more fruit to much fruit, we must spend more time with God… in His Word and in prayer.

Let’s look at our passage this week...

John 15:9-12:

As the father has loved me, so I have loved you. Now remain in my love. If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

One of the most powerful lessons of being in a relationship with Jesus Christ is that of God's love. Notice that in the passage Jesus loves you just as much as the Father loves Him. For this reason Jesus teaches that the way that you remain in His love is to obey His commands. It is not a matter of saying that you love God because you go to church or that you are on the roll of church membership. Rather love is an action verb that is displayed by your obedience to what God wants you to do.

There is a great benefit to obeying God's commands. The end result is it brings joy to both Jesus and you!  Verse 11 says that it actually completes your joy.

This brings us to another point in the Christian life. The biblical Christian life is not a burdensome journey of boredom and legalism. If this is what you experienced in the past then it is not the abundant life that God describes in the New Testament.

In fact the Bible clearly teaches in 1 John 5:3: This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome.

Isn't that good to know?  If you view living for God as a bunch of unwelcoming ‘do's and don'ts’ then you have missed what this life is all about.

This is a life of loving God by how you obey what He asks you to do. Now let's look at one of the most important summaries of love in the Bible found in the last verse of today's passage: My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you.

Wow! Did you get that! One of the ways you abide in Jesus Christ as a branch does in the vine; one of the ways you allow Christ's joy to enter your life; one of the ways you make Jesus' joy complete is by loving others around you.

As you obey the commands of Jesus and love other people, you are actually abiding in Christ.

This is the road that leads to much fruit. God wants us to yield a great produce for His glory.

As you live this way and obey your Heavenly Father who loves you with the same love He gives to His Son, Jesus, you are in for a bunch of joy and true abundance. Go ahead and give God a chance this week. Seek to obey Him no matter what, and watch your joy barometer increase.