“These things I have spoken to you, that My joy may remain in you, and that your joy may be full.” Jn.15:11
Fruit not our own, produced through strength not our own, for glory not our own. That my friends, is the surest road to a kind of superlative joy that Jesus jealously reserves only for those willing to take Him up on His promises found in Jn.15:1-11. “These things…My joy…your joy may be full”. When fruit not our own is brought forth through a strength not our own (Jn.15:4,5) for a glory not our own (Jn.15:8); then a joy not our own begins to take up glad residency within (Jn. 15:11).
For many of us, repentance means to stop trying to be fruitful for the Lord. Our greatness for God is ultimately grounded in a steely resolve to live in desperate, ongoing dependence upon borrowed, supernatural resources. Samuel Brengle, one of the early leaders of the Salvation Army understood this well. One night he was introduced to speak as the “great Dr. Brengle”. That night he wrote in his diary,
“If I appear great in their eyes, the Lord is most graciously helping me to see how absolutely nothing I am without Him, and helping me to keep little in my own eyes. He does use me. But I am so concerned that He uses me and that it is not of me the work is done. The axe cannot boast of the trees it has cut down. It could do nothing but for the woodsman. He made it, he sharpened it, and he used it. The moment he throws it aside, it becomes only old iron. O, that I may never lose sight of this.”
And we either, Dr. Brengle…we either.
Flashpoint: The fullness of our joy is profoundly determined by the depth of our dependency.
