“These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.”

John 15:11

In every passage of Scripture, God has a desire that He is expressing and thoughts that He desires us to receive. In this passage, Jesus clearly speaks the reason for the passage and what one of His main goals is in communicating the passage to us. Let’s examine this passage to see God’s desire in it and see what He is desiring to communicate to us.

John 15:11 “These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full.” Jesus spoke the things in John 14-15 so that His joy would remain in us and that our joy would be complete. God’s joy remaining in us is based upon us abiding in His presence. Being and remaining in the presence of God is what Jesus referred to so many times in John 14-15:

John 14:3 “And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also.”

John 14:18 “I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you.”

John 14:20 “At that day ye shall know that I am in my Father, and ye in me, and I in you.”

John 14:23 “Jesus answered and said unto him, If a man love me, he will keep my words: and my Father will love him, and we will come unto him, and make our abode with him.”

John 15:4a “Abide in me, and I in you.”

Back in Psalms, God speaks on this subject in Psalm 16:11, “Thou wilt shew me the path of life: in thy presence is fulness of joy; at thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore.” What God is saying in this passage is fully in line with what He was communicating through Jesus in John 14-15. Joy and fullness of joy is found by being in the presence of God.

One of the reasons why God desires us to abide in Him and He in us is so that He can fill us with His joy. One of the greatest desires of all of us is to walk in joy. So often we look to our own lusts and desires to get feelings of joy, but instead of finding joy we find emptiness. Essentially, joy is the state of being when the deepest God-given desires of knowing Him, being in a relationship with Him, and being in His presence are met. Joy is not a feeling. Rather, it is the result of one walking in the reality of being one with God.

Are you seeking true Joy by being in God’s presence or are you looking to the things of self and the things of this life for the feelings of joy that can never remain? God gives us the way to joy in this passage. Our job is to simply know Him, walk with Him, and abide in Him, and His joy will remain in us, and our joy will be made full.

-Jonathan U