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“These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. ” -John 15:11, ESV
What was the joy that Jesus had? It is an insult to use the word happiness in connection with Jesus Christ. The joy of Jesus was the absolute self-surrender and self-sacrifice of Himself to His Father, the joy of doing that which the Father sent Him to do. “I delight to do Thy will.” Jesus prayed that our joy might go on fulfilling itself until it was the same joy as His. Have I allowed Jesus Christ to introduce His joy to me?
The full flood of my life is not in bodily health, not in external happenings, not in seeing God’s work succeed, but in the perfect understanding of God, and in the communion with Him that Jesus Himself had. The first thing that will hinder this joy is the captious irritation of thinking out circumstances. The cares of this world, said Jesus, will choke God’s word. Before we know where we are, we are caught up in the shows of things. All that God has done for us is the mere threshold; He wants to get us to the place where we will be His witnesses and proclaim Who Jesus is.
Be rightly related to God, find your joy there, and out of you will flow rivers of living water. Be a centre for Jesus Christ to pour living water through. Stop being self-conscious, stop being a sanctified prig, and live the life hid with Christ. The life that is rightly related to God is as natural as breathing wherever it goes. The lives that have been of most blessing to you are those who were unconscious of it.
Chambers, O. (1993). My utmost for his highest : Selections for the year (NIV edition.). Westwood, NJ: Barbour and Co.
Check out this article recently published in the Washington Post by one of my favorite authors, preachers, and church planters, Mark Driscoll
“I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.” -Psalm 139:14 (NIV)
Recently, a 29 year-old nurse, Melanie Stevens, found a cello lying beside a trash bin and put it in her trunk and left it there for a couple of days. She decided she wanted her boyfriend, a cabinetmaker to put a hinge on the front of it and to install little shelves inside so she could use it as a CD case.
What she didn’t know was that this instrument was a A 320-year-old Stradivarius cello valued around $3.5 million. As it turns out, the primary cellist for the Los Angeles Philharmonic left the instrument outside his home and a bicyclist stole it. No one knows why he later abandoned it, but he did and as fate would have it, Stevens found it.
Luckily, before her boyfriend got a round to making the CD case, Stevens saw a news report about the missing cello and returned it. The cello made in 1684 was one of about 60 made by Stradivari in his Cremona, Italy works. The Los Angeles Philharmonic bought it about 30 years ago. According to Associated Press, Robert Cauer, a Los Angeles-based instrument restoration specialist says the valuable instrument is damaged but repairable and should be back in service by this fall. Cauer added the prospect that the prized instrument could have been turned into a CD holder “is so abominable, I get sick when I hear it.”
Imagine something worth $3.5 million dollars being used to store CD cases, Cauer is right, it is abominable. A noble instrument like this one was designed for a much higher purpose than holding recorded music, it was made to create it. I wonder what Stradivarius would think about this?
God has created you. He created you for a purpose. I am confident that He wants you to fulfill the purpose for which you were created. Too many people settle for the common the ordinary, when God had much more in mind when He created them. They become CD racks, when He designed them to be a unique, one of a kind masterpiece.
Are you fulfilling the God’s purpose? If not, will you make a commitment today to discover His purpose and fulfill it?
Wilson, J. L. (2009). Fresh Start Devotionals. Fresno, CA: Willow City Press.
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