Restore to Me the Joy of Your Salvation
I received a call on the church line a couple of weeks ago from a woman in New Jersey. She was distraught. She had been searching the internet for a Bible believing church that could answer her questions. Hartford Institute estimates there are over 350,000 Christian churches in the US. Think for the moment about the odds of her reaching me in Boise, Idaho. This was a divine appointment.
She felt lost. After an early exposure to Christianity in her youth, she was lured away by the pleasures of sin and the distractions of the world. For years she was away from Christ until she had a disturbing dream about being taken by demons. Instead of the dream leading her back to Christ, it led her to embrace occultic and new age practices. She did not elaborate, but it was a definite anti-God/Christ belief system. Finally, two years ago she was invited to a church; she repented, accepted Christ, rededicated her life to him and was immersed. I gathered from the timeline she was in her mid-sixties.
Her problem? She didn’t feel saved. She had no joy in her salvation. She had been living the Christian life for two years, but she still felt lost. Instead of questioning her feelings, she questioned her faith. Apparently, she was in a fellowship that emphasized feelings over fact and it also seemed to be Calvinistic in its doctrine. Her question to me was if she was really a part of the “elect.” Her question dealt with whether God had predestined her to damnation, instead of salvation.
I didn’t have the time in our 47 minute phone call to explain the fallacies of Calvinism, so I reframed her narrative (within her worldview) to show God’s prevenient grace in drawing her to himself throughout all her life out of sinfulness and back into a saving relationship with Christ. This was evidence of her election. We concluded that the same faith in Christ that brought about the fact of her salvation, was also the answer to her problem feelings. Trusting Christ is the answer when our heart condemns us.
How many of us have doubted our salvation because of guilt from our past or the fact that we don’t feel saved. Emotions are fickle. Sometimes we ride high on the waves of emotion, but sometimes we crash. Feelings DO NOT overcome fact. The fact of our salvation is anchored in the finished work of Christ.
Joey
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