How to Restore the Joy in Your Christian Life

Joy in your Christian life. You know what it is.

When you got saved there was joy in heaven (Luke 15:7, 10). And when God, our Father is happy, we can’t help but be merry with Him (v. 23).

It’s a fact that God wants all His children to be joyful.

Jesus said, “These things I have spoken to you that My joy may be in you and that your joy may be made full” (John 15:11).

Paul the apostle said, “always rejoice” in 1 Thes. 5:16.

But often we just don’t have that inward feeling of joy. It’s been missing. Maybe for a while…weeks…months…even years.

You recognize the  joy in others. You see it on their face when they talk. Jesus is their Beloved. His Word is precious to them. You can see it in their eyes, hear it in their voice. Their love for Christ is effervescent.

But for you, it’s missing. So what do you do?

Do you forget about it? Give it up? Just dismiss it as a past stage in your life?

Do you outgrow all of that? Do you outgrow that kind of enjoyment or experience?

Or do you…

GET YOUR JOY BACK.

Good. Glad you’re still reading. I can’t do it for you. You have to do it. But, I’ll just tell you what has helped me.

Let’s start (as we always should) with Christ. To get your joy back, Christ is two things to you. Conveniently, they’re both found in Matthew 25.

The Bridegroom

There’s a story at the beginning of Matthew 25 about ten women. These ten women, all virgins, were waiting for the same thing. They wanted to meet the bridegroom.

If you know the story, you also know there’s a lot more to it, but don’t miss this point: Christ is our Bridegroom.

And these ten virgins represent us—Christ’s believers. Before God, we all should be such pure-hearted “virgins” lovingly awaiting our marriage to Christ, our Bridegroom (John 3:28-29).

The point is, we just can’t separate the joy of our salvation from our love for Christ our Bridegroom.

Peter said, “Whom having not seen, you love, into whom though not seeing Him at present, yet believing, you exult with joy that is unspeakable and full of glory” (1 Pet. 1:8).

So how is your love? The first step to recovering your joy is to rekindle your love for the Lord Jesus.

For a minute, look beyond Christ as your Redeemer and Savior, and behold Him as the Bridegroom. Just tell Him,

“Lord, you’re my Bridegroom, and I really love You.”

Go ahead. Tell Him. Out loud.

There’s a second part to this matter of taking back our joy. Christ is something else besides our Bridegroom, but we’ll consider that in a follow-on post.

I won’t cover that here because I just want to stay focused on this one point—taking back our love for Christ.

If we don’t get this, if you don’t recover our best love for Him, we’ll never take back our joy. Our joy is in the presence of our Bridegroom

It’s so important. It’s the prerequisite. So get yourself a pen and a sticky note. Start a tally of how many times throughout the day you tell the Lord Jesus that you love Him. Shoot  for a dozen. I’ve been doing this. It really helps. Keep a tally.

To be continued….

Photo Credit: miri695 (creative commons)