“I have spoken these things to you so that My joy might be in you and that your joy might be fulfilled” (John 15:11).
What was the joy of Christ, which He hopes might also be in His disciples? His joy was to do the wish of the Father, to do that for which He had been sent;
“In the scroll of the Book it has been written of Me; to do Your wish, O My God, I was made willing; and Your law in the midst of My innermost being” (Psalm 40:7-8).
Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, showed us how it is to be. He was made willing; the verb is in the passive aorist. So He wasn’t born willing, but, having found the path of true faith in the Word, He surrendered Himself to the extent that He became willing to be made willing; He didn’t make Himself willing, but He allowed Himself to be made willing. We are to do the same.
This became His joy; to allow the Father to mould Him, prepare Him and guide Him, to fulfill the role that had been set down for Him before the foundation of the world. The great task of fulfilling the Holy Prophetic Scriptures in their entirety became the joy of His life. As He gave Himself completely to the divine task, His own joy was made complete.
“Who, for the sake of the joy set before Him, endured the cross, disregarding the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God” (Hebrews 12:2).
So this joy of His, He hopes will be ours; it is the joy of discovering in the scriptures who God is and what we are and how we are to live our lives in this world. There is a joy in discovering that we are called to be like Him, and finding out that, if we are willing, God will make us willing to follow His path to holiness and salvation.
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