“Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.”
Psalm 51:12 ESV
“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead,
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In this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith—more precious than gold that perishes though it is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls.”
1 Peter 1:3, 6-9 ESV
Do you remember your surrender? The moment, the time, the season that you fell in love with the Lord? When your zeal and excitement for your newly found freedom was so strong that it felt like nothing could quench those warm and fuzzy feelings in your heart when it came to your Savior?
In earthly relationships and friendships, the beginning is fantastic and exciting. You’re inseparable from that person. You love spending time with that person. You love hearing from that person, and you cannot wait to reach out to that person daily. In the beginning, you cannot fathom falling out with that person or even losing the excitement and love of being with that person. You’re besties. Ride or die. Nothing can come between you.
But as time creeps on, the relationship becomes lukewarm. The mundane busyness of life or the simple routine of the relationship can begin to cause you to take for granted that relationship and time with that person. Hurt feelings and broken perspectives from misunderstandings and creep in to cause hinderances, and your faith in the relationship takes subtle hits.
So it is with our relationship with the Lord. We get lost in the day to day. We begin to focus our attention to our worries. We once woke up ready to conquer the day with the Lord eager to hear His voice. Now we may wake up weary, dreading the things we need to get done, and we’ll maybe throw up a quick “help me through the day" prayer before we get started. We forget what it feels like to be in His presence without a care in the world. He loves time with us. We NEED time with Him. So let us use this COVID downtime to “remember the joy of our salvation” and rekindle the flame of our FIRST LOVE.