John 15:8-11 – “In this is my Father glorified, that you bear much fruit; and so you will be my disciples. Even as the Father has loved me, I also have loved you. Remain in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will remain in my love; even as I have kept my Father’s commandments, and remain in his love. I have spoken these things to you, that my joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be made full.

One of the important things about living the Christian life is that we maintain an appropriate relationship with God. By that I mean that we cannot sin and expect God to be ok with it. If we sin we don’t remain in Jesus’ love. It isn’t that Jesus doesn’t love us, it’s that He can’t keep showing us His love when we choose to walk away from Him.

I am thinking of it like a beam of light. You can choose to stand in the beam of light by continuing to obey. If you decide to not obey it’s like choosing to stand outside of the beam, you are no longer in His love. His love is still there for you, it’s just that you have made the decision to stand outside of it.

Notice that when we make a choice like this, we are the ones walking away, not God. God is a pure God and He will not tolerate any sin. We can’t expect God to just ignore what we may consider even a “little” sin. We may think that it is unfair, but that is not for us to decide. When we do sin, God has provided a way for us to confess, but when we choose not to confess, we’ve walked out of the light.

Jesus uses Himself as an example. He obeyed the Father in everything He did. He ended up with us and He was very happy to have us. That’s hard for me to believe sometimes; that we are a great prize for Jesus, but it is very important that I do believe it. Jesus really does like us and love us. We know that He does because He died for us.

Jesus says that when we do what He wants, it will help both of us. He will have joy and we will also have joy. God made us and knows what we really need. If we trust Him, it will really work out for us and we will have joy. He really does have our best in mind.

This joy is something you can experience. It is a special kind of joy that can’t easily be explained unless you experience it yourself. Doing what God wants really does make a Christian happy.