Tiny Preposition, Big Joyful Impact

Challenge 28 - Joy In Spite of Stoopidity

John 15: 11

These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. (ESV)

I have told you these things so that My joy and delight may be in you, and that your joy may be made full and complete and overflowing. (AMP)

(I am going to encourage you to read John 13: 31 – John 16: 15 at this point. It will help give you a solid base for this one verse we are looking at today. And reading the Word of God is a component to full joy.)

The disciples had just experienced Jesus washing their feet, Judas the betrayer was revealed to them (though rumor has it that they didn’t “get” it…), and then Jesus launched into teaching. A few of His words:

Love one another: just as I have loved you (John 13: 34 ESV)

Believe in God; believe also in Me. (John 14: 1 ESV)

If you love Me, you will keep My commandments. (John 14: 15 ESV)

Because I live, you also will live. In that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you. (John 14: 19-20 ESV)

Abide in Me, and I in you. (John 15: 4)

…for apart from Me you can do nothing. (John 15: 5 ESV)

As the Father has loved Me, so have I loved you. Abide in My love. If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. (John 15: 9-10 ESV)

Joy. Chara. Gladness. Delight.

Chara is rooted in chairo – to be well; to thrive. A joy found in hope of what the future promises.

Ok. We know what joy is in this verse. So now what? It also says that Christ’s joy will be in you. This tiny preposition establishes the relationship between Jesus’ joy and us. It indicates having a power operative in us:

We are surrounded by and equipped with Jesus’s joy. We exist in Jesus’ joy. We cannot be separated from Jesus’ joy.

Joy without Jesus is incomplete, empty, fleeting.

Joy with Jesus is binding, inherent[i], and it remains a continued state of being. It is a deep, abiding gladness of being loved by God through Jesus Christ.[ii]

Friends, may we grasp without doubt our union with Jesus and therefore the steadfastness of His joy as we face all the things this life brings. Let’s make the world wonder at our fullness of joy and point them to Jesus as we love God and love people just as He commanded us to do.

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[i] Merriam-Webster. (n.d.) Inherent. In Merriam-Webster.com dictionary. Retrieved June 18, 2026 from https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/inherent

[ii] The Lutheran Study Bible (Mobile App Version). (2026). Concordia Publishing House. (Original work published in 2009). (Note on John 15: 11).