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Refreshment, Renewal, and Release

Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spiritPs. 51:12

What has happened to all your joy? Gal. 5:6

You have made known to me the path of life; you will fill me with joy in your presence, with eternal pleasures at your right hand. Prov. 16:11

These things I have spoken to you, that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be full. John 15:11

Lord Jesus, knowing you is a personal but not a private affair. We may come before you alone, but we can’t remain alone. As soon as we bring our longings and needs before you, you enlarge our hearts and expand our gaze. We remember others. Such is the way of the gospel. Grace comes to us that it might run through us.

Today as we come, we bring faces and names precious to us. Everybody needs what you alone can give, Jesus—new mercies, fresh grace and renewed joy. We all have stories of failure and fear, burdens and weakness, brokenness and stuck-ness, heartache and longings. The details of our stories differ, but our need for the gospel is the same.

So, we ask with confidence, and we appeal with hope, restore to us the joy of our salvation, Jesus. Bring us back to the joyful, childlike love we had for you at first, Jesus (Rev. 2:4)—a love totally generated in response to the undeserved, unparalleled, unwavering love you have for us (1 John 4:19). May your Spirit renew, refresh, and release our hearts.

For your joy is our strength, Jesus—strength for repenting, strength for obeying, strength for hoping, strength for serving others.  Above all, strength for adoring you, for you alone are worthy of our hearts’ attention, affection, and allegiance.

The only sacrifice we cling to is yours, Jesus. Only your cross—only the gospel enables us to offer up a contrite heart free of all condemnation and a broken spirit free of all self-contempt; and a thirsty soul, filled with expectation and hope. So, we cry out together, “Hallelujah, what a salvation! Hallelujah, what a Savior!” So very Amen we pray, in your most holy and loving name.

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