His Joy in Us!

God wanted to create a happy people. Ultimate happiness rests in Him so He made this incredible offer: I will come inside you and give you My joy!

When Jesus comes in, we have a union with Him that is closer than any other union.

We can’t give our spouses or our children our joy and our peace. We may give them knowledge of how to have joy or peace, but in order to actually give them the joy we have, we would have to enter them and be a part of them. That is what Jesus promised He would do for us. We wouldn’t just have knowledge of Him; He would reside in us. Jesus’ final prayer before He went back to the Father was “...that I myself may be in them” (John 17:26).

Jesus said He had to go away so He could come again—not as a man to walk beside us—but as a Spirit to live within us. The Christ life is Christ re-living His life in us and enabling us to be and to do what in our own strength we never could accomplish.

We can only have His presence as we delight in what He delights in. If His Spirit is one with ours, then we find our joys in what gives God joy.

Dear Father, what an incredible offer You extend—Your joy in me! I realize that to have Your joy I must choose what I know pleases You.

“I am coming to you now, but I say these things while I am still in the world, so that they may have the full measure of my joy within them” (John 17:13).