Joy Eternal
Part 10
“You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Psalm 16:11
“He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.” Revelation 21:4
We have come a long way together in this series. Ten posts. We started at Nehemiah’s wall where the people were weeping and God said stop crying and start feasting. We explored how joy is contagious and how it came bundled with the nature of God at salvation. We went deep into the spiritual foundation of marriage and the connection between prayer and joy. We walked through the wilderness and discovered that the valley is where you find out who God IS. We saw that joy heals – spirit, soul, and body. We stood at the foot of the cross and learned that we were the joy set before Jesus, pressed out like oil in a garden called the oil press. And we learned how to fight for our joy when the enemy comes to steal it. All of that has been building to this final post. Because joy is not just for now. Joy is ETERNAL. And where we are headed is more joyful than anything we have experienced on this side of heaven.
A Deposit, Not the Full Amount
Here is something that I think will change the way you experience joy today. Everything you have felt of God’s joy in your life – every moment of worship where your spirit soared, every answered prayer that made you laugh out loud, every time the presence of God was so real you could barely stand – all of that was a DEPOSIT. Not the full amount. A deposit. Paul calls it the “guarantee of our inheritance” in Ephesians 1:14. The Greek word is arrabon – it is a business term. It means a down payment. Earnest money. The portion paid upfront that guarantees the full amount is coming.
Do you see what that means? The best moment of joy you have ever experienced in the presence of God was the DOWN PAYMENT. The free sample. The taster. If that was the deposit then what is the full inheritance going to be like? I cannot even get my head around it. The moments that brought you to your knees in worship, the moments where you wept because His goodness was so overwhelming, the moments where joy hit you so hard you could not speak – those were the PREVIEWS. The feature film has not even started yet.
That is one heck of a deposit.
What Heaven Actually Looks Like
We have some strange ideas about heaven. I think most of them come from cartoons and bad movies rather than Scripture. People sitting on clouds playing harps. An endless church service. Floating around in white robes with nothing to do for all eternity. Let me tell you – if that were heaven I would understand why some people are not in a hurry to get there. That sounds like the world’s longest waiting room. But that is NOT what Scripture describes.
Revelation 21 and 22 describe a city. A NEW Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God. There is no temple in it because God Himself is the temple (Revelation 21:22). There is no sun or moon because the glory of God is its light and its lamp is the Lamb (21:23). The river of the water of life flows through the middle of it, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb (22:1). And on either side of the river the tree of life – do you see it? The tree of LIFE. The same tree that was in the garden of Eden. The one that was there from the beginning before sin entered and everything went sideways. It is back. Full circle. What was lost in Genesis is restored in Revelation. The whole story of the Bible is a love story that starts in a garden and ends in a city and the tree of life is in both of them.
And in that place – Revelation 21:4 – He will wipe away every tear from their eyes. Death shall be no more. No mourning. No crying. No pain. The former things have PASSED AWAY. Do you understand what that means? Every source of joylessness that has ever existed – death, grief, sickness, betrayal, loss, loneliness, the enemy himself – GONE. Permanently. Not managed. Not reduced. GONE. And what replaces them? The fullness of joy. The presence of God unfiltered and uninterrupted for eternity.
In Your Presence Is Fullness of Joy
David wrote Psalm 16:11 and I do not think he fully understood the weight of what he was writing. “You make known to me the path of life; in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.” Fullness. Not partial joy. Not joy with a side of sorrow. FULLNESS. And pleasures forevermore. Not pleasures for a season. Not pleasures until the next trial comes. Forevermore. That word in the Hebrew is netsach – it means perpetual, everlasting, without end. Joy that never runs out. Joy that never fades. Joy that never gets stolen because the thief is no longer in the picture.
We talked in Post 6 about how the mountaintop is where you celebrate what God did but the valley is where you discover who God IS. Heaven is the final mountaintop. The one you do not come down from. The celebration that does not end. And the God you discovered in the valley – the one who was faithful when the fig tree did not blossom, who sang over you in the dark, who was crushed in the oil press so you could carry His joy – that God will be right there. Face to face. No more seeing through a glass dimly (1 Corinthians 13:12). No more walking by faith and not by sight. You will SEE Him. And in seeing Him you will experience the fullness of what every moment of earthly joy was pointing to.
This Changes How You Live Today
Now here is why this matters for your Monday morning and not just your eternity. If you know where you are headed it changes how you walk. If you know that fullness of joy is your destination then the joy you carry today is not wishful thinking – it is a FORETASTE. Every time you choose joy in the middle of difficulty you are practising for eternity. Every time you worship when circumstances say you should weep you are rehearsing the song you will sing forever. Every time you refuse to let the enemy steal your joy you are acting like someone who knows how the story ends.
And you DO know how the story ends. Revelation 22:5 – “And night will be no more. They will need no light of lamp or sun, for the Lord God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.” No more night. No more darkness. No more midnight singing in prison because there will be no more prison. Just light and joy and the presence of God and reigning with Him forever. That is where you are headed. THAT is the joy set before you.
E.W. Kenyon said “Eternal life is the nature of God. It is what God is. When we receive eternal life, we receive the nature and substance of Deity.” We talked about that in Post 3. The nature of God is in you RIGHT NOW. And the nature of God is joyful. The deposit is already working. The down payment is already producing returns. You do not have to wait until heaven to experience the joy of eternity. It started the day you were born again and it will never stop growing.
The Joy of the Lord Is Your Strength
We began this series with Nehemiah 8:10 and we end here. The joy of the Lord is your strength. Not was. Not will be. IS. It has been your strength through every post in this series and it will be your strength through every season that lies ahead of you. In the feasting and the wilderness. In the answered prayer and the waiting. In the marriage and the midnight. In the healing and the pressing. On the wall when the enemy mocks and at the throne when the story is complete.
I want to tell you something and I want you to hear it from my heart. I have known seasons of deep joy and I have known seasons where joy felt a million miles away. I have been on the mountaintop and I have been in the valley. I have feasted and I have fasted. And through all of it I have learned one thing that I would give everything to pass on to you: God is faithful. His joy is real. It is available to you right now – today – not because your circumstances are perfect but because HE is perfect. And the joy that He offers you today is just the beginning. The best is yet to come. It is ALWAYS yet to come with God.
So feast. Celebrate. Share with those who have nothing prepared. Send portions to those who are still in the wilderness. Keep oil in your lamp. Stay on the wall. Worship at midnight. And when the enemy tells you it is over and the joy is gone and you are finished – look him in the eye and say what Wigglesworth said.
“Oh it’s just you.”
And then roll over and go back to rejoicing. Because the joy of the Lord is your strength. And it is eternal.
A Prayer
Father, thank You. Thank You for joy. Thank You that it is my strength and my inheritance and my destiny. Thank You that the best moments of joy I have known in Your presence were just the deposit and that the fullness is still coming. I do not deserve it. I could never earn it. But You give it freely because that is who You are. Help me to carry this joy well – to share it, to protect it, to let it spill into every corner of my life and every person I meet. And when I see You face to face one day – and I will – let the joy of that moment be the completion of everything You started in me the day I said yes. I love You Lord. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
— — —
“Eternal life is the nature of God. It is what God is. When we receive eternal life, we receive the nature and substance of Deity.”
– E.W. Kenyon
“Joy is the serious business of heaven.”
– C.S. Lewis
Always i-CH