Sad faces in the church. It seems that nearly every service I watch on TV has people in the audience who are either sad that they have come or they wish they were somewhere else. Why is that? With all of the shows being performed at some churches, you would think that everyone there would be happy. The point of coming to church is to worship God and thank Him for your Savior, Jesus Christ. You don’t have to be smiling and happy to do this but having an expression on your face as if you just ate something sour doesn’t show that you are grateful for His atonement of your sins!

I know that life isn’t going to be all wonderful days with no problems for anyone, whether you are a Christian or not, but seek your Savior with joy for the forgiveness that you will have through your faith in Him. Joy can’t be taken from you regardless of your situation because your joy is in Him by faith. It doesn’t depend on your feelings. Happiness is based on your emotional state and how you feel in the moment. That is why being happy is not a permanent state of mind.

Being joyful is a permanent state because Jesus has provided us with the only way to salvation. The absolute joy of knowing that God loves you and me enough to redeem us and call us to be His is an experience that is impossible to describe. The “Left Behind” series of books was an eye-opener because it illustrated in detail what we can read in the book of Revelation. God has not left us without a map or a directory of how things will go when the church is taken away from the Earth. All of the details are there even if the language is a bit hard to understand.

Revelation is easier to understand today because of the new translations such as the Christian Standard and the Message. Reading the Bible itself is hard for many just because it tells so much about the Jewish people and their history, the good and the bad. Most historical documents don’t include anything “bad” in them. God inspired the writers to include it because it shows just how patient and loving God is.

Jesus came to bring the possibility of forgiveness and redemption to everyone and He brought it to His people first, yet they rejected His offer and His teaching because it wasn’t the same as their idea of a Savior. Can we have salvation in Jesus even when we are sad? Yes, we can. God loves us but not our sinful lives which is why we have to turn to Jesus for our salvation.