[PAUSE ALERT – After today, The Up Daily Devotional will go on pause for 2 weeks, resuming on September 7, 2026.]
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Let’s begin with three verses from John 15. As we go through them, let’s look for what Jesus says about joy.
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commandments and abide in his love. These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full” (verses 9-11).
Let’s follow the logic.
Jesus invites us to abide in his love. How do we do that? By keeping his commandments. Why did he tell us this? So that his joy may be in us, and that our joy may be “full.”
I think this is one of those passages that we quickly skip over, but shouldn’t.
Jesus is telling us something very important about joy. He is telling us that when we keep his commandments, not only are we abiding in his love, but we are being filled with more and more joy!
As always, it’s important to highlight the difference between happiness and joy. Happiness is based on how you feel. In contrast, joy is based on whose you are and how you live.
Perhaps this is why G.K. Chesterton calls joy “the gigantic secret of the Christian.”* You may not always be “happy,” but you can have an identity and purpose which is firmly rooted in Christ, and you can have a meaningful existence as you keep Jesus’ commandments and share his love as a part of the body of Christ.
The “good life” is about getting; but a great life is about giving.
Let’s abide in Jesus’ love and keep his commandments. “These things I have spoken to you,” he says, “that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full.”
Notes:
-Quoted in: Ryan Skoog, Peter Greer, and Cameron Doolittle, Lead with Prayer: The Spiritual Habits of World-Changing Leaders (Nashville: Faith Words, 2025), 11.
-Bible quotes, ESV.
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