I am the Vine--verses 11 & 12

Good Morning Everyone!

We are moving right along with our John chapter 15 project!  It is hard to believe we are this far into it!  I do not have it all down as firm as I would like, but I do fairly well when I review using first letter helps.  My goal now is to move more into using the Scripture Typer app for some better review so I can get off of the first letter helps eventually. . . but we'll see how it goes!  At least I know I am hiding more of it in my heart than I ever had before!

This week our verses are 11 & 12:

"These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full."

"This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you."

The first thing that really stood out to me when I read these verses was God's joy remaining in us, and our joy being full.  Think about that for a minute--what exactly IS "full?"  Full means--well, FULL!  If your glass is full and you keep pouring juice into it, what is going to happen?  It overflows!  It cannot possibly expand to contain any more at all, no matter how much you may want it to!  If my drawer is full and I keep putting more things into it, the drawer will stop working, because it is TOO full.  Eventually I suppose the drawer might be pushed into falling apart, if things were continually being put into it beyond it's capacity.

Now think about joy--do we have a capacity limit for joy?  I know what it feels like to be full of food--especially after a Thanksgiving feast!  But what exactly would it feel like to be full of joy?  I read in my study of these verses that it is the absence of Christ from the soul that makes people sad.  If that is true, then the opposite would also be equally true--the presence of Christ in the soul would make people glad!  So very glad, that the happiness bubbled out of you and spilled onto those around you!

Which moves me to the second verse for this week--verse 12.  What would it look like if we were loving each other as God has loved us?  Instead of a "me first" world we would live in a "you first" one.  Instead of building ourselves up by perhaps putting others down, we would look for ways to lift others up.  When you really think about a world like that--there would be no crime, for who would steal from another if they were treating them and loving them as God had loved THEM?  Yes, in our sinful world we would still have things we couldn't control such as sickness, but it still starts to sound and look a lot more like heaven--if we were truly loving others as God has loved us.

I found this statement in my reading this morning, that I thought illustrated this beautifully:

"Love to man is the earthward manifestation of the love of God.  It was to implant this love, to make us children of one family, that the King of glory became one with us.  And when His parting words are fulfilled, 'Love one another as I have loved you' (John 15:12); when we love the world as He has loved it, then for us His mission is accomplished.  We are fitted for heaven; for we have heaven in our hearts."
Desire of Ages, E.G. White, p. 641

THAT's what I want!  I want my joy to be full.  I want to look at others as God looks at them.  I want heaven in my heart.

Have a beautiful week, walking with your Savior!

~Susan