Eternal Pleasure

Eternal Pleasure

Now we live with a wonderful expectation because Jesus Christ rose again from the dead. For God has reserved a priceless inheritance for his children. It is kept in heaven for you, pure and undefiled, beyond the reach of change and decay. –1 Peter 1:3-4

Perhaps our biggest struggle in regard to hope is not the lack of it but our desire—bordering on demand—that God fulfill what we are hoping for, what we believe he has promised to us, here and now.

Because we’re human, we love pleasure. I love the pleasure of biting into the perfect strawberry, resting after accomplishing a big job, a hot shower on a cold morning. And there is nothing wrong with enjoying pleasure. In fact, the most pleasurable sensations and experiences we have in the here and now are just a taste of what we will experience in the future, on that day when evil is crushed forever and we are joined with God forever in a new heaven and a new earth. Dan Allender says in his book The Healing Path, “Think of the finest meal you’ve ever eaten. Recall the most pleasurable sexual moment with your beloved. Then realize that your memory offers but a glimmer of the glory that awaits you. Hope grows only to the degree that the pleasures of this world serve as a window to the glory of the next.”

As believers, we do not want to be willing to settle for the pleasures this world has to offer. We want to live for the ultimate, permanent pleasure. For now, some of our hopes are fulfilled in a partial way. Then, all of our hopes will be completely fulfilled—on that day when eternal life in the presence of God begins. And the source of that pleasure will be Jesus. Biblical hope is not hope for something, but hope in Someone. And that Someone is Jesus. All of our deepest longings will be fulfilled when we are in his presence.

Would you be willing to pull up the anchor of hope that you’ve plunged into the things of this earth and sink it into the rich and enduring soil of heaven? Keep longing for the ultimate pleasure that is still ahead of us—an eternity spent in the presence of God.

Eternal Father, your promises are so valuable to me, I can’t seem to help myself from wanting it all now! Nourish my longing for heaven, and help me to wait well, placing my hope in you.

DIGGING DEEPER