In Love and Full of Joy: God's Order for True Life

Have you ever wondered why some people seem to radiate joy while others struggle to find happiness despite having love in their lives? The answer lies in understanding God's divine order for how love and joy work together in our spiritual lives.

Why Love is Essential to Joy

Here's a fundamental spiritual principle that can transform your understanding: You can have love without joy, but you cannot have true joy without love. Think of it like water and swimming - you can have water without swimming, but you cannot swim without water.

Love serves as the essential context that makes joy work effectively in our lives. While Scripture tells us "God is love" (1 John 4:8) and that love is the greatest gift (1 Corinthians 12:31), joy flows from love like fruit from a tree. You can have the tree without the apple, but you cannot have the apple without the tree.

What Does It Mean to Be "In Love" but Not Taking It In?

Many believers find themselves in a frustrating place - they know God loves them, but they feel spiritually anemic. If love is your heart muscle, then joy is the blood supply getting energy to every cell in your being. You're not failing at love; you're simply not allowing joy to flow through that love.

Consider these examples of being "in" but not "taking in": 

• Sitting in a restaurant but never eating the food
• Visiting the best doctors but refusing life-saving medicine
• Being around Jesus (like Judas) but never truly receiving Him

Joy requires context to function properly, just like gasoline needs a tank to hold it and direct it to the engine.

How Does Joy Demonstrate Its Power?

The story of Paul and Silas in Acts 16 perfectly illustrates joy's power when operating within love's context. After being beaten and imprisoned for sharing the gospel, instead of complaining, they prayed and sang praises to God. Their joy-filled worship in the midst of suffering literally shook the prison foundations, broke their chains, and led to the jailer's conversion.

Even in the darkest dungeons, you can be in love and full of joy. This is the strength of the Lord working through proper spiritual order.

Why Context Matters More Than You Think

The story of world-renowned violinist Joshua Bell illustrates the critical importance of context. When he played his $3.5 million Stradivarius in a subway station disguised as a street musician, people were irritated and wanted him arrested. Yet these same people would have paid thousands to hear him perform in a concert hall.

The music was identical, but the context changed everything. Without proper context, even the most beautiful gifts can be rejected and despised.

What Does It Really Mean to Live "In Love"?

Biblical love isn't the culture's version of love, focused on a transactional means of taking and getting affirmation, validation. True love, as demonstrated by God, is about giving. "God so loved that He gave" (John 3:16). Love is God's commandment and state of being for life - you walk in it, live in it, just like the genius of a fish shows up in water.

Key aspects of living in love include: 

• Forgiveness as a true expression of love
• Walking in accordance with God's commandments
• Giving rather than constantly taking
• Remaining in Christ's love through obedience

How Do You Get Filled with Joy?

Joy is not just an emotion - it's spiritual empowerment. The Bible calls joy an anointing oil that gets inside us, filling us to overflowing. It's medicine, strength, and supernatural fuel for life.

Jesus explained the process clearly in John 15:7-11: "If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you will and it will be done for you... I have told you these things so that my joy and my delight may be in you, and that your joy may be full and complete and overflowing."

The order is crucial: 

• Live inside the house of love (abide in Christ)
• Get filled with joy (receive His empowerment)
• Experience strength for life and ministry

Are You Trying to Eat Your House Instead of Living in It?

Many people reverse God's order, chasing joy or happiness hoping to eventually feel loved. This is like trying to eat your house so you can live in your soup - it's completely backwards.

Stop chasing experiences or events to make you feel loved. Instead, by faith, take up residence in God's love. Once you're living at that address, joy becomes the banquet available inside the house.

What About When Love Seems to Cause Pain?

If you've experienced heartbreak, rejection, or disappointment in relationships, you might blame love for your pain. But love isn't the antidote to sorrow, sadness, or weakness - joy is. Love provides the context; joy provides the strength.

Don't try to swim across the Atlantic Ocean of life. Get inside the airplane of love and let joy be the fuel that powers your journey.

How Do You Activate Joy in Your Life?

Joy is activated by faith. Philippians 4:4 says "Rejoice in the Lord always. Again I will say, rejoice!" This isn't just positive thinking - it's a spiritual discipline of re-joying, refilling with God's joy through faith.

Faith triggers joy and makes your spiritual design work effectively. You must believe to receive, and you must step into God's love to access His joy.

Life Application

This week, make a conscious decision to live "in love and full of joy" by practicing God's proper order. Instead of chasing happiness or waiting for circumstances to make you feel loved, choose to abide in God's love by faith. Start each day acknowledging that you live at the address called "God's Love" because of Jesus' finished work on the cross.

Then, actively receive His joy through worship, gratitude, and declaring His goodness over your life. When challenges come, remember that joy is your strength, not just a feeling.

Ask yourself these questions: 

• Am I trying to earn God's love through my performance, or am I resting in His grace?
• When I face difficulties, do I immediately step out of love into fear, or do I remain in His love and draw on His joy for strength?
• What would change in my relationships if I operated from a place of being loved and joy-filled rather than needy and empty?
• How can I "re-joy" today - actively refill with God's joy through worship and faith?

~Dr. Stephen Marshall