The Joy of Salvation

You know Jesus saved you when you put your faith in Him as your Lord and Savior. You know you’re one of God’s children, but there is something missing in how you are living. Perhaps it feels like you’re walking through life just going through the motions. Maybe you even feel numb. Perhaps you haven’t thought about your identity as a Christian in a long time and, consequently, don’t consider your salvation that big of a deal on this side of eternity. Maybe you make excuses for not going to church or for not reading your Bible. Perhaps your actions reflect that your top priorities simply don’t  include any spiritual disciplines.

I have experienced this. The day-to-day of life can distract me from having joy in simply knowing that I am saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8-9). The things of the world look shiny and call out to me to find satisfaction in them. The trials I go through feel heavy and I become weary from carrying the burdens they bring. My heart no longer desires to pursue the Lord through reading my Bible or going to. The result? I don’t “feel” connected to God at all. I feel far from Him, and I experience depression and numbness. This is what it looks like when I am going through the motions.

Honestly, the times I experienced this, I didn’t realize I was in this situation for a long time. I remember a moment when I realized it. I also remember the moment when the Holy Spirit brought Psalm 51:12 to my mind. “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation And sustain me with a willing spirit.” [1] This Psalm of David was written after David’s sin with Bathsheba and the death of their baby. David was grieved over his sin and he came before the Lord in a broken and surrendered heart. He knew that he had lost the joy of being called by God. 

Our salvation was given at a great cost: the life of Jesus. The reason we celebrate Advent is to remember Jesus’s first coming, and to give His life as a sacrifice on our behalf. We also celebrate the Advent season because we look forward to the time when He will come again and take us for Himself to enjoy eternal life with Him. When each of us consider this beautiful truth, we can be filled with gratitude because of what Jesus did and because of God’s deep love for us. 

How Sin Affects the Joy of Salvation

Yet, there are times that we forget the joy that comes from all Jesus did. Like David, those times might be directly linked to when we fall into the temptation to sin and turn from the Lord; when we choose to put something or someone else in His place. Perhaps it looks like getting complacent when it comes to being set free from sin. Perhaps it’s forgetting what it really means for the very power that rose Jesus from the dead to live inside of the believer. Perhaps adjustments are intentionally or unintentionally made to our mindsets and lifestyles, and it results in a neglect of the most important relationship: the believer’s relationship with God. 

Sin blinds the believer from truth. It leads to hiding, just as it did for Adam and Eve. Instead of pursuing the Lord, we often run when we know we’ve chosen to turn away from Him in some area of life. Whether it’s hidden sin or sin on display, sin separates us from God and keeps us from experiencing the true joy of salvation. But the beauty of a relationship with the Lord is that we can choose to confess sin and repent of it, and God graciously and mercifully forgives. He desires to fellowship with us. However, He will not have just parts of us. We must surrender all.

Receive the Joy of the Lord

What if this Advent season, you and I agree to come before the Lord with humble and surrendered hearts and ask Him to restore to us the joy of His salvation? What if this year, we not only celebrate the birth of Christ, but also the amazing freedom we have in Christ because of His death and resurrection? 

Take a few minutes and think about what Christ freed you from. We all have sin that we are ashamed to admit is part of our past. Yet, if I consider the bondage I was in and I am now, I gain a proper perspective of the joy I have in Christ. I believe this is possible for you, too.

The second part of Psalm 51:12 says, “uphold me with a willing spirit.” This reminds me of Charles Spurgeon’s book The Treasury of David, when he said:

He knows we struggle with pride and distracted minds. As a result, He allows us to exercise our free will and wander away, walking our own path, until we lose confidence and joy in ourselves. He allows us to feel the distance we have gone, the pain it causes, and the lack of joy we have apart from Him. He allows us to understand what it means to feel that pain, so that we know where to find safety and true joy. When we make that choice and endure the consequences, we learn to trust Him. We were not programmed to follow Him. Instead, we received an invitation. The question is this: do we choose to accept that invitation each day?

Holding Onto the Joy of Salvation

As believers, we must remember the joy of our salvation.  We must also remain willing to put trust and confidence in God alone. As Christian women, let us say yes to God and be  obedient to His leading. This willingness is part of the joy we crave. 

We were saved to be set free from sin, of course. We were also saved so that we could experience a relationship with God, just as He intended when He created us. God gave us freewill, and that freewill affords us the freedom to say yes or no to Him. In this freewill, we choose to love God through our willingness to obey, or we choose to  disobey by loving ourselves more.

Obedience is a demonstration of a believer’s love of God and produces joy in salvation. Hopefully, you don’t believe the lie that obeying God is inconvenient or “unfair.” If you study obedience, you’ll discover that to obey God is to be under His protection, to be close to His heart, and filled with uncontainable joy.  Just as a loving mother allows her child to feel pain so he learns the joy of his mothers protection, so God, our Loving Father, allows us to feel the pain of disobedience, so that we might understand what the joy of our salvation looks like. 

If you are in need of joy this Advent season, pray Psalm 51:12. Ask Him to restore that joy to you. Ask for his help in learning to be willingly obedient. Thank Him for mercy; for allowing you to learn from your mistakes. Thank Him for grace; for being the child of a Loving Father Who wants you to experience His love and joy, and who enables you to by the power of His Spirit. Be as specific as you can and honest with the One Who knows you best; the one Who wants you to know Him and be under His protection. 

The Her Renewed Strength team is praying for you! We pray that you would rediscover the joy of your salvation this Advent season. 

Love,
Mary 

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Sources

1 Psalm 51:12, New American Standard Bible: 1995 Update (La Habra, CA: The Lockman Foundation, 1995).

2 Charles Spurgeon, The Treasury of David: Vol. 1 (Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson), 420