Christosis: Participation in Christ and Imitation of Christಮಾದರಿ

Every day, I’m going to remind you of our definition of Christosis: Jesus became like us, so that we could be with Him and become like Him.

In the middle of Jesus’ farewell message, He says the following:

I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! — John 15:11 (NLT)

This is a transition verse. It captures what Jesus has said up to this point.

My question for you is this…

What are your thoughts on this promise from Jesus?

Jesus’ desire is for you to be overflowing with joy.

Yes, Jesus desires for us to have joy, but that joy is in alignment with the vision He gives in His teaching.

This might be tough for us to believe because Jesus often speaks about suffering in John 14–16.

What if joy and suffering are connected?

Paul and James believed they were! (A lot of the epistles are followers of Jesus, practically revealing how to live the life Jesus envisioned in the Gospels.)

Look at what Paul said:

3 We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they help us develop endurance. 4 And endurance develops strength of character, and character strengthens our confident hope of salvation. 5 And this hope will not lead to disappointment. For we know how dearly God loves us, because he has given us the Holy Spirit to fill our hearts with his love.

— Romans 5:3-5 (NLT)

And James, the brother of Jesus:

Dear brothers and sisters, when troubles of any kind come your way, consider it an opportunity for great joy.

— James 1:2 (NLT)

The New Testament authors believed there was a connection between joy and suffering. They must have gotten this idea from Jesus. Today, we will frame John 15:12-17 through the perspective of overflowing joy.

1. Overflowing joy comes when we inconveniently love others.

One idea that cannot be overlooked when reading Jesus is the necessity to love others. This is not optional in following Jesus. One can claim to follow Jesus and not love others, but this claim leads to something that is not Jesus-centered. Jesus begins and ends this section with the command to love one another.

12 This is my commandment: Love each other in the same way I have loved you. 13 There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. - John 15:12-13 (NLT)

This is my command: Love each other. - John 15:17 (NLT)

This concept is central to the message of Jesus, and it spoke to John. John’s Gospel reiterates this point of loving others over and over. Then, when we get to John’s epistle, he says this:

10 Love consists in this: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the sacrifice that would atone for our sins. 11 Beloved, if that’s how God loved us, we ought to love one another in the same way. 12 Nobody has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and his love is completed in us. 20 If someone says, “I love God,” but hates their brother or sister, that person is a liar. Someone who doesn’t love a brother or sister whom they have seen, how can they love God, whom they haven’t seen?- 1 John 4:10-12, 20

John says there is no room for hate in the way of Jesus.

Who have you been struggling to love?

Remove Jesus’s “one another” and fill in the blank with whoever you are struggling to love.

Love ____________ in the same way I have loved you.

2. Overflowing joy is a result of friendship.

In introducing friendship, Jesus is adding the necessity of community for Christosis, and this is a subversive concept:

13 There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14 You are my friends if you do what I command. 15 I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. - John 15:13-15

This is Jesus once again redefining what it means to be connected to God. In the Old Testament, only Abraham and Moses were described as friends of God:

Inside the Tent of Meeting, the Lord would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend. — Exodus 33:11a

“But as for you, Israel my servant, Jacob my chosen one, descended from Abraham my friend.” — Isaiah 41:8

Friendship was reserved for heroic voices in the movement of God—Abraham and Moses. Now, Jesus is spreading this idea to anyone who is connected to Him, and He says that the most valid form of friendship is revealed in the greatest sacrifice.

Friendship with Jesus is freedom from the place of enslavement to the ruler of this world. We can have overflowing joy because we have friendship with Jesus.

3. Overflowing joy is connected to our vocation.

Vocation simply means a job or a career.

We have a job that supersedes our worldly job. This is our job/vocation/calling in Christ.

You didn’t choose me. I chose you. I appointed you to go and produce lasting fruit, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask for, using my name. - John 15:16 (NLT)

The choice in this passage is not unto salvation—it’s unto vocation.

The choice is not about where we are going, but it’s about what we are doing.

The fruit we produce in Christ does not merit our salvation, but it reveals our vocation.

We could summarize today’s devotional with this thought:

Our vocation of Christosis produces an overflowing joy of love and friendship.

I have told you these things so that you will be filled with my joy. Yes, your joy will overflow! - John 15:11 (NLT)