Psalms 51:12 (NKJV)
Restore to me the joy of Your salvation, And uphold me by Your generous Spirit.
During a sickness a few months ago, I had some spare time, and I decided to read the almost 200-page chapter of John MacArthur’s book Biblical Doctrine about soteriology. It ended up blessing and edifying me immensely. There isn’t room enough for me to write about all the profound insights I gained, and I would highly recommend reading it for yourself. However, I will give a brief general overview of a few things that particularly stood out to me.
How often do we, as Christians, genuinely meditate on and give thanks for our salvation? Salvation is such a precious, immeasurable, indescribable gift. In fact, human words are totally inadequate to describe the value and priceless nature of this treasure. It should continually be the object of our highest praise to our great Savior!
There are two questions I believe Christians should thoughtfully ask themselves. One is this: How often do we preach the gospel to ourselves? Spiritual maturity is characterized not by dismissing the gospel as “for new converts” and thinking we are “past that stage”. No! It is characterized, rather, by the extent to which we do meditate on the pure gospel and praising the Lord for His saving work. The more we study the gospel and immerse ourselves in it, the closer we draw to God. All Scripture and theological topics have the gospel as their heart and foundation. We ought to continually bring ourselves back to the gospel truth. Doing such will cause us to gain a bigger picture of God and will bring us to our knees in thanksgiving.
The second question is, how much of the gospel do we preach to ourselves? It’s simple to quote John 3:16 to ourselves. Although its truth is so deep, rich, and mind-blowing in and of itself, there is so much more to meditate on. For instance, do we continually remind ourselves that we have been born again, transformed, justified, united with Christ, adopted into His family, regenerated, elected before the foundation of the world, redeemed, atoned for, bought with a price, reconciled to God…How much do we deeply consider what each of those phrases means? How much do we praise the Father for His election, the Son for His sacrifice, and the Spirit for His sanctifying work? Do we even have a tiny glimpse of how very precious our salvation really is? Or do we rush through life, depressed and anxious, losing sight of the eternal treasure we have been given? After I read MacArthur’s chapter on soteriology, I repented in tears, because I know I have not meditated on the pure gospel and let it permeate my being in the way I should.
I hate to think of how our Triune God feels when He sees us neglecting to study, immerse ourselves in, and praise Him for the gospel. Yet, how quickly we become complacent and immune to its power! We glance over Scriptures that we’ve read for years, too familiar with them, not stopping to consider their weight. How much closer to God we would be if we regularly thought deeply about soteriology! How many problems (i.e. lack of joy, lack of peace, worry, misconceptions about God and ourselves, etc.) would simply fade away due to greater, more expansive knowledge and appreciation of God and of our salvation.
Friends, let us never take our salvation for granted! The love of the Father, the precious blood of Christ, and the work of the Spirit cannot be taken lightly. Let this be our continual prayer, from Psalm 51:12: “Restore to me the joy of Your salvation.” For truly, we may refer to salvation as “our salvation”, but in all truth, it is His. He is the Author, Finisher, and Accomplisher of it. Salvation comes from absolutely nothing in and of ourselves! And for that, we praise Him. And meditating on the gospel will truly restore to us the sheer joy and delight of God’s salvation.
