Looking for Pleasure in All the Right Places—Finding the Greatest Joy in God

8. To me—less than the least of all the saints—this grace was given, to proclaim to the Gentiles the unfathomable riches of Christ
9. and to enlighten everyone about God’s secret plan—a secret that has been hidden for ages in God who has created all things.
10. The purpose of this enlightenment is that through the church the multifaceted wisdom of God should now be disclosed to the rulers and the authorities in the heavenly realms.
11. This was according to the eternal purpose that he accomplished in Christ Jesus our Lord,
12. in whom we have boldness and confident access to God because of Christ’s faithfulness.
13. For this reason I ask you not to lose heart because of what I am suffering for you, which is your glory.
14. For this reason I kneel before the Father,
15. from whom every family in heaven and on the earth is named.
16. I pray that according to the wealth of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in the inner person,
17. that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, so that, because you have been rooted and grounded in love,
18. you may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
19. and thus to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God.

Ephesians 5:25–32

25. Husbands, love your wives just as Christ loved the church and gave himself for her
26. to sanctify her by cleansing her with the washing of the water by the word,
27. so that he may present the church to himself as glorious—not having a stain or wrinkle, or any such blemish, but holy and blameless.
28. In the same way husbands ought to love their wives as their own bodies. He who loves his wife loves himself.
29. For no one has ever hated his own body but he feeds it and takes care of it, just as Christ also does the church,
30. for we are members of his body.
31. For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and will be joined to his wife, and the two will become. one flesh.
32. This mystery is great—but I am actually speaking with reference to Christ and the church.

• “For your Maker is your husband, the LORD of hosts is his name;” (Isaiah 54:5)
• “Return, O faithless children, declares the LORD; for I am your husband” (Jeremiah 3:14)

Revelation

• At the end of the book of Revelation there is a wedding between Jesus, the “lamb of God” and all his people.
• Rev 19
  9. Then the angel said to me, “Write the following: Blessed are those who are invited to the banquet at the wedding celebration of the Lamb!
• Rev 21
  9. Then one of the seven angels… came and spoke to me, saying, ‘Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the Lamb!’

based on NET Bible

David

• Psalm 16:11 “In your presence is fullness of joy
  At your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

Paul

• Phil. 3:7–11
  7. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ.
  8. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ
  9. and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—
  10. that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,
  11. that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.
• Paul goes on to say in 2 Corinthians 5:14
  14. For the love of Christ compels us...
• In Acts 16:25, Paul and Silas are in prison...

Samuel Rutherford

• A pastor in Scotland
  • spent many years in prison
  • wrote many letters and told of the extremes of joy he had in Christ
  • A hymn was written from his words in prison
     
    O Christ he is the fountain, the deep, sweet well of love.
    The streams on earth I’ve tasted, more deep I’ll drink above.
    There to an ocean fullness his mercy will expand,
    with glory, glory dwelling in Immanuel’s land.
     
    The bride eyes not her garment but her dear bridegroom’s face.
    I will not glaze at glory but on my king of grace;
    not at the crown he gives me but on his nail-pierced hand;
    the Lamb is all the glory of Immanuel’s land.
     
• Sarah Edwards, The wife of Jonathan Edwards:
   
  • “Last night… was the sweetest night I ever had in my life. I never before, for so long a time together, enjoyed so much of the light and rest and sweetness of heaven in my soul…
  • Part of the night I lay awake, sometimes asleep, and sometimes between sleeping and waking. But all night I continued in a constant, clear, and lively sense of the heavenly sweetness of Christ’s excellent love, of his nearness to me, and of my dearness to him; with an inexpressibly sweet calmness of soul in an entire rest in him.
  • I seemed to myself to perceive a glow of divine love come down from the heart of Christ in heaven into my heart in a constant stream, like a stream or pencil of sweet light. At the same time my heart and soul all flowed out in love to Christ, so that there seemed to be a constant flowing and reflowing of heavenly love, and I appeared to myself to float or swim, in these bright, sweet beams, like the motes swimming in the beams of the sun, or the streams of his light which come in at the window.
  • I think that what I felt each minute was worth more than all the outward comfort and pleasure which I had enjoyed in my whole life put together. It was pleasure, without the least sting, or any interruption. It was a sweetness, which my soul was lost in ; it seemed to be all that my feeble frame could sustain of that fullness of joy, which is felt by those who behold the face of Christ, and share of his love in the heavenly world.”

based on NET Bible