On This Day: When Deadly Sorrow is Returned to Joy

   “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice. You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn into joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish, for joy that a human being has been born into the world. So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.” (John 16:20-22)

   Do you KNOW Jesus as the Shepherd who returns his sheep to joy? Do you see him as the Savior who saves us out of the horrible cursedness of our sinful state and saves us into his kingdom of “righteousness and peace AND JOY in the Holy Spirit” (Romans 14:17)?

   I ask this because “this is eternal life, that they KNOW YOU, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). Every Scripture that promises eternal life to those who believe is calling us to KNOW God by personal experience through our interactions with him in his word, in prayer, and in his Spirit.

   And I ask this because the Scriptures are SATURATED with God’s determination to return his children to joy. We see this constantly throughout the whole Bible, God returning his children to joy after discipline, after defeats, after failures, after exiles, and even after outright violent persecution of his people.

   But we see the bull’s eye of this returning-children-to-joy in the evangel (gospel) itself. Prophecies spoke of the joy to come: “WITH JOY you will draw water from the wells of salvation” (Isaiah 12:3).

   God’s birth announcement to the shepherds was an announcement of joy: “Fear not, for behold, I bring you GOOD NEWS OF GREAT JOY that will be for all the people. For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:10-11).

   Jesus’ desire for his disciples just before his arrest and crucifixion was for them to experience the fullness of his joy: “These things I have spoken to you, that MY JOY may be in you, and that YOUR JOY may be full” (John 15:11).

   And the description of the effects of salvation in Christ could not be presented without this emphasis on joy: “Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and REJOICE WITH JOY THAT IS INEXPRESSIBLE AND FILLED WITH GLORY, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls” (I Peter 1:8-9).

   The whole message of God is that he returns his children to joy in Jesus Christ our Lord. The evangel is not primarily about an escape from hell but an entrance into eternal life. Eternal life is “to know” the Triune God. The fruit of the Spirit is “Love, JOY, peace”, because that is what God is like, and the kingdom of God is about “righteousness and peace and JOY in the Holy Spirit”.

   This is why Paul would summarize the whole gamut of history with this testimony: “For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with THE GLORY that is to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18). This is why he would emphasize, “the riches of the glory of this mystery, which is CHRIST IN YOU, THE HOPE OF GLORY” (Colossians 1:27).

   In Luke 15, Jesus told 3 parables (the lost sheep, the lost coin, the lost son) to emphasize how joyful God is that there is rejoicing in heaven every time a sinner repents. Why? Because God feels joy to have us as his own people.

   And when we are his people, he promises this wonderful description of our eternal return to joy in the coming glorification:

   Now to him who is able to keep you from stumbling and to present you blameless before the presence of his glory WITH GREAT JOY, to the only God, our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, dominion, and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. (Jude vss 24-25).

   The only question is, are we coming to God in our joylessness, our griefs and sorrows, our losses and laments, our mistakes and failures, our despondencies and depressions, our guilt, shame and fear, and letting HIM return us to joy instead of us putting on that role-playing façade of joy so we look like “good” Christians?

   Take another look at the way Jesus spoke to his disciples before they were even conscious of the loss of their Messiah and consider how you need him to speak his “truth in love” to your soul to return you to joy in him. And then keep listening and obeying until you KNOW HIM as your shepherd who returns his sheep to joy.

 

© 2026 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

 

On This Day: When Friendship Destroys a Church’s Love

   “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide, so that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you, so that you will love one another." (John 15:12-17)

   This was quite the eye-opener for me this morning. I had never noticed before that Jesus had just told the apostles that they were his friends, but he never used the word for friend-love to describe the aim of all his teaching. The "love one another" was agapè-love, which means the same kind of love we receive from God.

   This makes sense that, if Jesus is the vine and we are the branches, the love that flows through us to others is the love that flows into us from the Triune God. And this is why Jesus has repeated the “agapè-love one another” command so many times!

   And yes, agapè-love is a “command” (friendship-love is not). So why do churches sacrifice agapè-love for friendship-love, or family-love?

   Part of the answer is that we have not been taught “the gospel OF THE KINGDOM”. People always hear about “the gospel”, and that this is a one-on-one interaction between us and Jesus. But Jesus and the apostles taught “the gospel of the kingdom”, meaning that the good news of salvation is not a solitary experience of Jesus coming to us, but an individual’s experience of coming to Jesus IN his kingdom and becoming one of his brothers in the brotherhood of believers.

   That’s why Jesus taught so many parables about “the kingdom”. It’s why he would tell the religious hypocrites, “Truly, I say to you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes GO INTO the kingdom of God before you” (Matthew 21:31). Everyone understood that Jesus was calling people out of the kingdom of the world and into the kingdom of God.

   This is also why Paul would remind the churches, “He has delivered us FROM the domain of darkness and transferred us TO the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:13-14). When someone is born again, they are born INTO Jesus’ kingdom. When someone “comes” to Jesus, they come to him IN his kingdom. When someone “receives” Christ, they receive him as their King IN his kingdom.

   What Jesus kept telling his disciples (constantly affirming that he would need to be alive for the things he taught them to be experienced) was that agapè-love was the love of his kingdom. You could leave all your friends behind and come into the agapè-love of his kingdom. You could leave your whole family behind and come into the agapè-love of his kingdom. You could have friendships in the kingdom that were under the authority of the agapè-love of his kingdom. You could have family relationships in the kingdom that were under the authority of the agapè-love of his kingdom.

   But you could NOT cover your relationship with Jesus and his kingdom with friendship-love, or family-love, or self-love. When those lesser loves have authority over agapè-love, we end up with the divisions and schisms based on friendship, family, and self-rule that Satan freely promotes amongst church-goers.

   At my six-decades-of-knowing-God stage of life, I have come to cringe when people talk about their friendships but not their agapè-love for Jesus’ church. When I see people act as if the church is about friendship or family, but there is no talk about “the kingdom of his beloved Son”, I know we are in trouble.

   The fact is that we either topple the idols of friendship and family (as Gideon was required to do with his own father’s idolatry), or those idols of friendship and family will topple the agapè-love focus of Jesus and his kingdom. If a friendship has more authority over how we follow Christ than Jesus does, we are not following Christ. If family members have more authority over us than Christ the Lord, then they are the ones we are confessing as Lord.  

   Some of us will know what it is like to lose family and friends in our determination to follow Jesus wherever he leads. We understand that the agapè-love of Jesus still covers how we relate to those people when we see them, but we must keep pursuing the agapè-love of Jesus in his kingdom even if they keep rejecting us for doing so.

   When I look back at all my church experiences in both the institutional and home churches, when people changed from seeking the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace within the church to building private friendships and family alliances behind the scenes, we were already past the point of no return. I have some painful lessons of trying too hard to salvage what people had already rejected.

   Others of us may realize that we are the ones whose devotion to friends and family have kept us from following Christ in his kingdom. As Jesus said to the church of Ephesus when they had “abandoned the love you had at first” (the agapè-love of Jesus’ kingdom), “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first. If not, I will come to you and remove your lampstand from its place, unless you repent” (Revelation 2:5).

   Yes, that’s how seriously Jesus takes it when we turn from agapè-love to any other kind of love. We cannot be his church (lampstand) unless we are receiving and expressing his agapè-love.

   When Peter wrote, “Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins” (I Peter 4:8), the “loving” and “love” are the agapè-love of his kingdom. Only when Jesus’ command to pursue THAT love is obeyed, can we “Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved (agapèd) children. And walk in love (agapè), as Christ loved (agapèd) us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God” (Ephesians 5:1-2).

   I have heard so many stories of what it is like for someone to come to Christ in Muslim countries. They know that their family and friends will hate them, and maybe even be the ones trying to kill them if they confess Jesus Christ as Lord. But here in North America, if a young person can’t follow Jesus because they are afraid of losing friends or upsetting family, we just change our youth ministries to accommodate them. And then we wonder why they leave the church as adults when we never actually brought them to believe “the gospel of the kingdom”. They didn’t repent and trust in Jesus in the way described in God’s word, so once all the fun of youth group is over, the fun of the world awaits.

   For those who hear Jesus when he says, “These things I command you, so that you will love one another”, walk in “the obedience of faith” and leave the lesser relationships to him. This is part of the “seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness” characteristic of relationship with God. Friendship and family are optional; agapè-love is not.

   So look in the mirror of truth, admit any ways lesser loves constrict your agapè-love, repent if and how much is needed, and deliberately “pursue righteousness, faith, love (agapè), and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart” (II Timothy 2:22). It’s a command from Jesus.

 

 

© 2026 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)

 

On This Day: Pruned to Bear Fruit in the Beatitudinal Valley

   "I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is thrown away like a branch and withers; and the branches are gathered, thrown into the fire, and burned. If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. By this my Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit and so prove to be my disciples." (John 15:5-8)

   There are times when I am feeling negative emotions to the point of despondency, but suddenly I look around and realize where I am: in the Beatitudinal Valley! That always reminds me that it is a blessing when we find ourselves feeling poor in spirit about what we are reading in God’s word.

   As I considered this in relation to a dubious track record in the “bearing much fruit” category, God again blessed me with another Beatitudinal Journey that reminded me who I am, and for whose glory I am alive.

   If "bearing much fruit" requires saving lots of souls, or building up lots of disciples into living for Christ, or helping people spend a lifetime seeking God in his word and prayer, I am obviously a failure.

   If "bearing much fruit" means looking to others like we are filled with "love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, faithfulness and self-control" (the fruit of the Spirit) then this would be strike two.

   However, if letting myself meet God in the Beatitudinal Valley so he can bless me with a genuine journey into real fruit bearing is how I will "bear much fruit", then recognizing where I am on the downside of the valley gives me hope that the upside is ahead.

   The Beatitudes are the way Jesus began his Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5-7). They are eight statements that begin, “blessed are…”, and then describe the qualities people will find in themselves when God is blessing them. Yes, this is the focus, that Jesus is describing what it looks like to be blessed by God, NOT what we must do to earn God’s blessing.

   So, if any of us feel “poor in spirit” in relation to bearing much fruit, that willingness to admit how poorly we are doing is a blessing from God.

   And if any of us go deeper into “those who mourn” what is wrong with us, it is further evidence that the Father is at work to bless us by grace through faith.

   When we find ourselves going even further into meekly acknowledging that we cannot fix our problem of bearing so little fruit and so we must submit to Jesus Christ who can “transform” us into his image, that meekness is a blessing of God to break our attachment to self-effort and lead us to fully rely on his Son.

   When we submit to Jesus Christ and find ourselves hungering and thirsting for the righteousness of bearing much fruit to the Father’s glory, we are being blessed. This downside of the Beatitudinal Valley brings us to valley bottom where God satisfies our longings by grace through faith in ways no amount of doing good works or trying harder could ever accomplish.

   This results in God blessing us to become his “merciful” children with “pure hearts” in our single-hearted devotion to him. We become the “peacemakers” whose pure hearts want nothing more than to see everyone we meet come to experience peace with God through the good news of Jesus’ kingdom. And we become such an annoyance to the world, the flesh, and the devil who do not want people glorifying God by bearing much fruit, hence their incessant efforts to “persecute” Jesus’ church into oblivion.

   Since I am sharing this on the morning of Easter Sunday (Resurrection Sunday), it is fitting that we would celebrate the new covenant in Jesus’ blood by seeking with all our hearts to bear much fruit in this world to the glory of God the Father, and the glory of Jesus Christ our Lord who has provided so great a salvation.

   And then we go from here to abide in Jesus Christ as branches abide in the vine, and to praise the Father for any ways he deems fit to prune us (knowing that much more is required than pride would ever admit). If we truly hunger and thirst to bear much fruit to the glory of the Triune God, we welcome every pinch of Father’s pruning shears as a gracious and necessary good to make us like his Son.

 

© 2026 Monte Vigh ~ Box 517, Merritt, BC, V1K 1B8

Email: in2freedom@gmail.com

Unless otherwise noted, Scriptures are from the English Standard Version (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version. ESV® Text Edition: 2016. Copyright © 2001 by Crossway Bibles, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.)