Listen and Pray: Joyful Jesus
Click the button below to listen and pray through this passage. This practice will take about 8 minutes.
Read
John 15:9–12 (NLT)
“I have loved you even as the Father has loved me. Remain in my love.
When you obey my commandments, you remain in my love, just as I obey my Father’s commandments and remain in his love.
I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow!
This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you.”
1 Peter 2:9 (NLT)
“But you are not like that, for you are a chosen people. You are royal priests, a holy nation, God’s very own possession.
As a result, you can show others the goodness of God, for he called you out of the darkness into his wonderful light.”
Pray
Jesus,
You are not distant or joyless.
You are alive with delight, love, and holy celebration.
Call me out of the places where I have turned inward and lost sight of others.
Roll away the stones that keep me sealed in darkness.
Fill me—not with fleeting happiness—but with Your joy,
the joy that flows from abiding in love and loving others well.
I open my heart to Your light.
I step toward Your voice.
Let my joy overflow as I walk with You.
Amen.
Listen & Reflect
As we prepare to enter prayer today, take a few moments to settle your body and your thoughts. Release any distractions or fears of anxious thoughts. Lay those at the feet of Jesus and allow the Holy Spirit to fill you with his peace and joy.
Breathe in deeply and release your breath slowly.
As we read the following passages slowly, allow the Spirit to illuminate a word or phrase or even give you a picture in your mind.
Pause for a moment. Close your eyes and picture the face of Jesus. What is the expression on his face?
Many of us picture Jesus as kind, compassionate, and wise—but also serious, quiet, perhaps even stoic.
But have you ever imagined a joyful Jesus? Jesus laughing with friends. Celebrating around a table. Light-hearted, present, fully alive.
While Jesus is indeed a man acquainted with sorrow, He is also full to the brim with joy. That is why He says in John 15 that He wants to give you His joy—not a small portion, not a polite smile, but joy to the point of overflowing.
Meditate on this quote from Dallas Willard for a moment as you picture Jesus full of joy.
Joy is a deep-seated sense of well-being and safety in God’s universe. Joy is part of the fruit of the Spirit, growing as a natural product of one’s inner self to be like that of Christ, which itself is full of joy. Undoubtedly, he is the most joyoud being in the universe. The abundance of his love and generosity is inseperable from his infinite joy. All the good and beautiful things from which we occasionally drink tiny droplets of soul exhilarating joy, God continually experiences in all their breadth and depth and richness.”
When we picture Jesus this way, His teachings begin to make sense. Why so many stories of banquets and feasts? Why the images of celebration, abundance, and shared tables? Because the kingdom of God is not grim endurance—it is joyful communion.
Where did Jesus’ joy come from? John 15 reveals two deep sources.
First, Jesus abides in the love of the Father—secure, delighted in, never striving.
Second, that love flows outward into love for others.
This is how joy works in the kingdom of God. Joy is not self-generated or self-contained. It is deeply relational. The quality of our joy is inseparably tied to the quality of our love.
When we turn inward—fixated on our circumstances, disappointments, or fears—joy begins to wither. We may feel like Lazarus, sealed in a dark tomb, cut off from life and light. But even there, Jesus stands at the entrance calling our name.
“Come forth.”
Can you hear him calling to you? Beckoning you to the light?
As 1 Peter 2:9 reminds us, God has called you out of darkness and into His marvelous light.
The stone is being rolled away. Can you see the light rushing in? The invitation still stands: Will you come out? Will you receive His joy?
- How does it change your understanding of joy to know Jesus wants to share Hisjoy with you?
- Where have you been turned inward rather than outward in love?
- Is there a place in your life where you feel stuck in darkness, longing to hear Jesus call your name?
- What might it look like today to step toward the light and accept His invitation to joy?