NEW YEAR REVIEW OF PSALM 51:12-13
 
FBC-how-to.png

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. (Psa 51:12-13)

Restore to me the joy of Your salvation
The story of God's salvation-work in Jesus holds the key to human flourishing. But we have to confess that, while we can see that this could be our situation, we don't always feel that joy. We try to fill ourselves with joy, but all other sources are just nonsense-and-wind. So, our joy in God ebbs and flows. But it may always be restored. Indeed, God loves to hear us ask for this: He loves when we delight in Jesus, when we appreciate His Son's sacrifice, victory, and beauty.
 
Uphold me with a willing spirit
When we know what Jesus did for us, we're eager to be a part of what He is doing for others. There's nothing like being with Jesus in meaningful work! We were made for this ("image"). But much like joy, willingness can slip away. We need God to uphold this within us. Rather than will-powering our way into obedience, we should pray-power it: that is, entrust even our attitude to God's grace. We may do this with confidence because He made us to live-alive and because He loves to see us eager to serve His love.
 
Then
It's so important to put the right things in the right place. Order is everything. What needs to happen first is that God works, answering prayer. Second, what needs to happen is a work in me, my soul and spirit need rejuvenation. I am not the solution; they are not the problem. God is the solution and the problem is my inner-life.
 
I will teach transgressors Your ways
Joy spreads. That's just what it does. We don't need to knuckle our foreheads over anything. We just need to get our hearts happy! God's joy will spread to the people who need it most, in a way that is increasingly effective. In other words, we'll learn to teach, and transgressors will learn.
 
And sinners will return to You
Gospel-happied people in God's hands are real head-turners! Sinners will return to Jesus. And when sinners return to Jesus, other sinners tend to notice. So the souls that are heavy on our hearts may be reached for Jesus tomorrow as we teach the sinners God brings us today. Let's pray so. Let's get so happy and be so willing. God will work.
 

[TLDR: God means to give us joy and life.
God working in our lives begins with God working on us.
God uses happy, willing saints to return sinners to Jesus.]

Photo by Braden Collum on Unsplash

Featured
How to Start Your Day Right: Silence the Wicked!

Psalm 101 is mostly affirmations, self-talk taken right off the best of the web’s “best practices for great mornings” articles.

Read More →
Always Not Useless

What has Paul been doing in Galatia? He’s been engaged in the spiritually exhausting, emotionally demanding, mentally taxing work of introducing sinners to Jesus and trying his best to make sure they understand who Jesus is and what He did and what that now means for them. It’s labor, he says, toil, struggle; it’s hard work.

Read More →
You are a Real Thing

I’ve been reflecting on the Bible’s historicity. That is the question of whether the story of the Bible is meant to be read as existing within the same universe, the same timeline, on the same planet, having the same sorts of people, as our lives. The answer, of course, is yes: The Bible is clearly, thickly, meant to be read as historical. All measures of historicity verify this.

Read More →
Whose Righteousness Endures Forever

Psalm 112 describes a man whose "righteousness endures forever." In ten verses there are three references to how "his righteousness endures forever... he will never be shaken; the righteous will be remembered forever." (3, 6, 9)

Read More →
Equipped is Good

Last week’s devotional (“Good is Perfect”) captured was has been such a helpful truth for me through the years. And it’s one that puts us on a much more biblical, practical, realistic, foundation for life with God. See, God didn’t design us to be perfect, He designed us to be useful, “good” for His purposes. The question isn’t, “How can I be a better me this year?” It’s, “How can I be of more use to my Lord?”

Read More →
Good is Perfect

When the Bible uses the word “perfect” it means “good.” And this is a more useful standard for us to employ.

Read More →
Bread Alone?

As a Bible Church, we believe it is important for us to read God's Word.
It is one of those simple, non-spectacular, habits--along with prayer and church attendance--that accounts for so much of our spiritual health or unhealth. No one who neglects these habits will be spiritually healthy. Anyone who invests in them will get healthier.

Read More →
"I would remind you"

Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the gospel I preached to you, which you received, in which you stand, and by which you are being saved, if you hold fast to the word I preached to you—unless you believed in vain. (1Co 15:1-2)

Read More →
Snip Snip

"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. 2 Every branch... that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit....4 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. 5 I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. (Joh 15:1-5)

Read More →
The Life of Belovedness

Few places in Scripture give such close attention to the nature of God's relationship with us. We are often admonished to consider the love of the Lord, but here we see what that looks like. And so we encounter God's thoughts toward us, His knowledge and love for us, in detail. And this carries significant implications for how we think about God and how we live as His people.

Read More →
 
David GriffithsFellowship Bible ChurchGod, Theology, Covenant, Gospel, Discipleship