Remember what it was like when you were first saved? For a few hours, days, or weeks, nothing mattered. You didn't care what anyone thought, what your body felt like, or what was in your bank account.

All of a sudden you passed from death to life, and you were going to heaven. There was so much joy in your life, you didn't care what happened. Nothing made any difference. Your car could have stopped running, or you could have lost your job, but you had so much joy, nothing else mattered. It was just so good to be free!

Then people started giving you "reality pills," saying, "In a little while you will come down with the rest of us." All of a sudden, that joy was gone. But joy is a fruit of the human recreated spirit. Fruit shouldn't decrease; it should increase.

Yet the psalmist David asked God to restore the joy of his salvation. I believe that is what God is doing in the Church today.

"RESTORE UNTO ME THE JOY of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee" (Ps. 51:12-13).

The psalmist is saying, "If you can restore the joy I had when I started, I'll start getting sinners converted to you."

One of the reasons we haven't been reaching the lost is because we haven't had much with which to reach them.

For years, the lost have looked at the Church and said, "Dear God, I don't want what they have; it could be contagious."

The Church needs to get back to where the world looks at us and says, "They have something I don't have, and I want it!"

When we start getting back to that place of joy, we will see people restored and sinners converted. But joy has to be restored to the Church first.

Source: Blood, Fire, and Vapor of Smoke by Mark Brazee
Excerpt permission granted by MBM Publications