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.
John 15:10-12 NLT
***
Is religion subjective? Nay, its soul is in objectivity,
in an Other whose Life is our true life, whose Love is our love,
whose Joy is our joy, whose Peace is our peace,
whose burdens are our burdens, whose Will is our will.
Self is emptied into God, and God in-fills it.
Thomas Raymond Kelly
***
But let all who take refuge in you rejoice;
let them sing joyful praises forever.
Spread your protection over them,
that all who love your name may be filled with joy.
Psalm 5:11 NLT
***
For the real difference between happiness and joy is
that one is grounded in this world, the other in eternity.
Happiness cannot encompass suffering and evil. Joy can.
Happiness depends on the present.
Joy leaps into the future and triumphantly creates a new present out of it.
Elise M. Boulding