From the Lord

Scotty Smith:  A Prayer for Renewing and Reveling in the Joy of the Gospel

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Psalm 51:12

The joy of the Lord is your strength. Nehemiah 8:10

What has happened to all your joy? Galatians 4:15

Jesus, knowing you is a personal but not a private affair. We may come before you alone, but we cannot remain alone. As soon as we bring our longings and needs before you, you enlarge our hearts and expand our gaze to see the faces and hear the cries of others. Such is the way of the gospel. Grace given is grace to be shared. We receive comfort and mercy from our Father for the extending comfort and mercy to others (2 Cor. 1:3-11).

As we continue in the season of Lent, we bring you a bevy of family members and friends, brethren and neighbors. Everybody is hungry and everybody needs bread from heaven—gospel manna. Every one of us is like King David, with stories of failure and fear, brokenness and weakness, heartache and heart need. The details of our stories differ, but each of us needs you just as much as the other.

So we ask with confidence and we appeal with hope, restore to us the joy of your salvation for us, Lord Jesus. For your joy is our strength—strength for repenting, strength for obeying, strength for hoping, strength for serving others… and above all, strength for adoring you, for you alone are worthy of our heart’s attention, affection, and allegiance.

When we leak, leave or lose our joy, the dark domino effect is predictable. We fall from grace into some form of legalism (Gal. 5:4). We move from loving and serving one another, to biting and devouring one another (Gal. 5:15), So renew us in the joy of your salvation, Lord Jesus. We want to revel and roll around in your grace goodness, matchless mercies and lavish love.

It’s your salvation, because we could never, ever save ourselves. We’re bankrupt and bereft of salvific currency and strength. So like Jonah, we humbly and gladly cry out, “Salvation comes from the Lord” (Jon. 2:9). Bring us back to the joyful, childlike love we had for you at first, Jesus (Rev. 2:4)—a love totally generated in response to the undeserved, unparalleled, unwavering love you have for us (1 John 4:19).

The only sacrifice we cling to is yours, Jesus. Only your cross, only the gospel enables us to offer up a contrite heart free of all condemnation, a broken spirit free of all self-contempt. And we cry out together, “Hallelujah, what a salvation! Hallelujah, what a Savior!” So very Amen we pray, in your most holy and loving name.