Salvation Joy

At the weekend I fulfilled a long standing obligation to go and preach at on old friends church. I met him about 25 years ago in Bible College. It was great to meet up with him and his wife again.

In church we sang that song based on Psalm 51 which has a line in it: "Restore unto me the Joy of my salvation". You know them times when you feel like Jesus is standing right next to me prodding me in the ribs saying listen to what you are singing.

I remember the first time I heard that song thinking why on earth would you have to ask God to restore Joy over the best thing that has ever happened to you. Salvation is like all your birthdays and Christmas's coming at once and more beside. And I have to ask God to sort out how I feel about that. As though I could be sad about God's greatest gift.

I know now there are some things that take away your Joy:

We take Jesus and what he has done for granted.
We allow circumstances to dominate our lives.
We replace intimacy and relationship with rituals.
We replace knowing Jesus with doing things for him.

But I think the number one problem in loosing our Joy in our Salvation is sin in my life.

In Psalm 51 that was David's problem. He had messed up big time and he was living with guilt. He had sinned against God and he couldn't live with himself and he found it hard to live before God. The great thing is that the antidote to guilt is forgiveness. We can have the certainty that as we confess our sin to God he has promised to forgive us. We are accepted because of his "Unfailing love".

The best way to restore the missing joy of salvation is just to take time out now and meditate on what Salvation is and what it means for you.