The joy of Jesus:
Everything exists for an end--has its place in God’s wide world, and is intended to answer some purpose, to accomplish some end. Every rational being has an object “set before” it. The creatures that are not rational live and exist for an end, but the end is not “ set before” them. The end is ever before their Creator, and Master, and Ruler; but the end is not set before them. They have not eyes to see it; they have no powers, or faculties with which to pursue it; but every rational being has an object “ set before “ it. And it is important for us very often to ask, for what end were we made? and for what end have we been redeemed? In a state of prior existence our Redeemer had, as it respects this world, an object before Him, and that object He came, as you know, into this world to pursue. In the words before us is one view of the goal to which our Saviour ran, or of the prize for which His course was pursued. It is called “the joy”--that is, the cause and the occasion of the joy,...