Love and Joy

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete." -Jesus speaking to His disciples, John 15:9-11

Aside from peace and hope, another gift that Jesus gave to His followers was love and also joy -- twin gifts which are evidence of being a true follower of Christ.

Real Love

Love was poured out into the world through the person of Jesus Christ. God is love, His love is personal and He will not force it upon anyone. The bible describes His love as patient, kind, not envious, not boastful nor proud, not self-seeking, not easily angered, keeps no record of wrongs, does not delight in evil, rejoices with the truth, always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres and never fails. Not sure where else to find this, but God.

Love is given, so that believers are able to give out the same love to others. I don't think anyone can reproduce this kind of love themselves. So apart from God, there is no real love, or at least this kind of love.

Joy vs Happiness

Along with love there is joy, which is not to be confused with what the world gives, a counterfeit substitute called happiness. The easiest way to differentiate the two is that happiness requires a happening. And each new happiness requires a new happening, most times a bigger happening than the previous one to bring the same effect. Example, one becomes happy perhaps when they eat something really really good, when they perhaps buy a new car, when they watch a good movie or go watch a concert or a game live, when they go on a new roller coaster ride or when they go on a trip. Then this same feeling of happiness will hit them again the next time around when they eat something even better tasting, when they buy a better car, when they watch a more exciting movie or attend a more inspiring concert or a more electrifying game, when they go on a more thrilling roller coaster ride or when they go on a trip which is farther, more expensive or somewhere they haven't been to yet or when they have done something they haven't before.

Joy on the otherhand is a complete feeling. One needs nothing more to add to it. Either you have it or you don't. If you have not received it, then you'd never know what it is. If you've lost it, then you will also know that you did. And it would be best to find out why.

Joy is like inner peace, you have it inside you even when everything else is chaotic in the outside.

These four gifts, peace, hope, love and joy, the world have diluted to appear so common place and sound too trivial, so as to be taken totally for granted.

The early believers all have this gift inside of them, along with the Words of Jesus and the Spirit of the Lord (the Holy Spirit). And they turned the world upside down, if not right side up.

Today, all new and true believers, should also have them inside of them. If they don't, they are no different than the rest of the world -- worldly and sadly, would do anything and everything else to find it because they still haven't found what they are looking for.