"RESTORE UNTO ME THE JOY OF THY SALVATION" Psalm 5l:12a

Only a true Christian offers this prayer honestly and sincerely. No other person could possibly do this. For only the child of God knows the joy of the Lord's salvation. It has come within his experience. He has been delivered from the curse, the condemnation and the consequences of his sin. He has become a child of God and an heir of God, and a joint heir with Jesus Christ (Romans 8:17a, b). Because of that experience, he knows the joy of heart that such salvation, or deliverance, brings to one who had been dead in trespasses and sins (Eph. 2:1-9). Church membership does not necessarily make one truly acquainted with this joy of the Lord's salvation. Church membership can be something wholly objective. Salvation experienced occurs within one's own heart, life, mind and soul. That is subjective.

Only a redeemed soul can lose "the joy of thy salvation." You lose only that which you have had. In former days, that joy was a living thing within the soul. Now the soul discovers, to its sorrow, that that joy is gone. It is well, however, to remember that it is the Joy of it that has gone; not the fact of salvation. That soul was saved, and as such never is finally lost. But if one has once tasted that the Lord is good, the soul desires and needs more than the assurance that it is saved. It longs for fellowship with God. That gives joy and satisfaction to the soul. When the relations between God and the soul are as the should be, then there is sweet communion with God. The cup of joy runs over. When sin comes into one's life, then there is broken fellowship and lost joy. And that loss is great!

The child of God discovers and feels that loss. He knows where and why he has lost it. By God's grace he yearns for the return of the joy he once knew. He prays for its restoration to him. God hears that prayer and grants the realization of that longing again. How marvelous, rich, abundant and wonderful is God's Grace to us!