Now You Can Finally Have Joy! How to Restore the Joy of Your Salvation (Part 2)

In the previous blog, we talked about how it looks when the joy of your salvation is gone. (see part #1 of this blog to get a better understanding of this).

Examples may include, but aren’t limited to:

1. Reading the Word and praying consistently, but lacking fulfillment from God after you spend time with Him.

2. Being able to tell others about Jesus and His love, but not truly enjoying your own life with Him.

3. Going through cycles of highs and lows when it comes to fighting the enemy; sometimes you fight him and other times you allow him to win.

If you can relate to any of the above, it’s important not to feel ashamed.

As I am writing this blog to you, I can only share these revelations with you because God has shown me instances of them in my own life.

Instead of worrying, it’s more important to move forward by focusing on having a close relationship with God.

God is more concerned about your desire to be close to Him than to be righteous. Yes, be righteous. But, those who are righteous aren’t always close to the Father . On the other hand, if you strive for closeness, righteousness will automatically follow.

When you think about those who are righteous but fall, it’s because they were more focused on having an appearance of following God, than actually being close with Him. When you are actually close with God, joy follows.

Why, you may ask?

Well, it’s because the fruit of the spirit is joy. So, when you are close with God, you’ll represent His fruit, which is joy.

If you’ve found yourself closer to righteousness than God Himself, you’ve likely strayed away from joy.

Church and serving God has become “routine” or like a position to you, but there’s no joy involved because it’s become more about self-fulfillment (feeling like you are “right” with God) than serving His Kingdom.

Before we go into a few ways to restore the joy of your salvation, I want you to understand this:

I once heard Dr. Shane Wall, my pastor, share that, “joy isn’t a feeling, it’s a response. Happiness is an emotion, but joy is a response.”

There are times that I’m at my job, church, or serving God while planning the Destiny Conference for Girls, but I don’t necessarily “feel” like doing what has to get done.

Although my emotion isn’t happiness, I choose to respond with joy. Joy doesn’t always mean you’ll feel great, but it does mean your response is from the fruit of the spirit which is love, peace, long-suffering, etc.(Galatians 5:22).

Now that we understand the difference between happiness and joy, here are a few ways to restore the joy of your salvation:

1. Get out of your “salvation routine: spend unplanned, unlimited time with God. If your time with God is limited to every morning or evening, this can soon get boring and mundane. Shake things up! Be intentional about spending time with Him just because or during different times of your day. God loves when we talk to Him throughout the day, instead of just during a set prayer time. Turn off your TV or go to your bathroom stall at work if you need to.
2. Witness: when is the last time you shared the gospel with someone? When we witness and help others, it helps us to remember why we serve God. It’s not about us, it’s about helping others to get to Him, too. Ask God each day, “Lord, where can I be a witness for you today?”
3. Be intentional about praise and worship in your life: did you know it’s impossible to praise God and be down at the same time? Turn on some worship music in your life. Then, make time to praise Him, even when the music is off. Don’t limit your praise to Sunday morning.

Prayer: “Lord, increase my closeness with you. Help me to serve you with closeness, not just out of a desire to be righteous. I want to be close with you, not just have an appearance of serving you. I love you.”

 

Love you,

Email me with your prayer requests, questions or comments at Jordone (at) JordoneWrites (dot) org