Getting Job-ed
“I have told you these things so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete.” John 15:11 CSB
If you’ve read Getting Job-ed and the blogs up until this time you may be thinking, “This is really weighty and heavy, and seems a little dark.” I definitely wouldn’t disagree with the weightiness and heaviness part, but let this be clear: even in the affliction and God revealing Himself through that, there is joy in that! Not joy how the world says there is, but true joy, true life.
Momentary light affliction
Paul says in 2 Corinthians 4:17 CSB, “For our momentary light affliction is producing for us an absolutely incomparable eternal weight of glory.” Paul was soon to be martyred for Jesus and he’s saying light affliction? Paul, while writing from prison, also says in Philippians 3:7-9, 4:11-13 CSB:
But everything that was a gain to me, I have considered to be loss because of Christ. More than that, I also consider everything to be a loss in view of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord… I don’t say this out of need, for I have learned to be content in whatever circumstances I find myself. I know both how to make do with little, and I know how to make do with a lot. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being content- whether well fed or hungry, whether in abundance or in need. I am able to do all things through him who strengthens me.
Paul isn’t just talking about some feel-good-get-you-through-the-day Facebook post or cliche about being content with your situation. He’s saying that in Jesus there is no comparison to the knowledge of knowing Christ. It makes any situation (wealth, poverty, life, death, etc.) bearable because knowing Jesus is the true treasure, not all this other stuff.
Jesus is not a cliche, He wants your joy to be complete…
What Jesus told us was that, what He did for us, was so that we can have His joy and that our joy would be complete. Our God is a joyful God! He wants us to be joyful and happy, even during times of affliction, even facing death (as we always really are). Can our eyes be open to see that during our affliction, there’s a bigger purpose, bigger meaning, a glory that we’ll someday see, seeing Christ more clearly now, while even if we lose our life, that to know and see God for who He is is worth more than anything we could have in this life (whether in affluence or suffering)? Jesus wants us to have joy and true joy only is in Him.
-Austin
