← How to Love God
Contents · 40 / 57
  1. Opening Scripture
  2. Preface
  3. How to Use This Book
  4. Study Features and Diagrams
  5. The Greatest Commandment
  6. What Does It Mean to Love God?
  7. With All Your Heart, Soul, Mind, and Strength
  8. Why God Is Worthy of Our Love
  9. We Love Because He First Loved Us
  10. The Gospel and the Transformation of Love
  11. Why We Do Not Naturally Love God
  12. A New Heart That Loves God
  13. Seeing the Glory of God in Christ
  14. Justification, Assurance, and Love
  15. Love, Emotion, and Obedience
  16. Is Love for God an Emotion?
  17. If You Love Me, Keep My Commandments
  18. Loving God When You Do Not Feel Love
  19. Duty, Delight, and the Formation of Holy Affections
  20. The Practices Through Which Love Grows
  21. Knowing God Through Scripture
  22. Loving God Through Prayer
  23. Worship, Praise, and the Lord's Day
  24. Repentance and the Restoration of Fellowship
  25. Obedience in Ordinary Life
  26. Loving God by Loving People
  27. Evangelism, Mission, and Love for God
  28. Loving God Through Suffering
  29. Obstacles, Counterfeits, and Spiritual Warfare
  30. Idolatry and Rival Loves
  31. Legalism, Moralism, and Religious Performance
  32. Emotionalism and the Search for Spiritual Experiences
  33. Distraction, Busyness, and Digital Formation
  34. Temptation, Spiritual Warfare, and Perseverance
  35. Growing in Mature Love
  36. Love and the Fear of God
  37. Loving God With the Mind
  38. Loving God in Community
  39. A Lifetime of Loving God
  40. The Eternal Enjoyment of God
  41. Study and Practice Resources
  42. Key Bible Passages About Loving God
  43. Frequently Asked Questions
  44. Thirty Days: Growing in Love for God
  45. Seven Days for Spiritual Coldness
  46. Why Does God Feel Distant? A Diagnostic Guide
  47. A Flexible Rule of Life
  48. Prayers for Growing in Love
  49. Small-Group Study Guide
  50. Personal Spiritual Assessment
  51. Pastoral Case Studies
  52. Glossary
  53. Recommended Resources
  54. Endnotes, Source Notes, and Bibliography
  55. Scripture Index
  56. Subject Index
  57. Final Exhortation

Growing in Mature Love

The Eternal Enjoyment of God

~3 min read

What is the final goal toward which love, holiness, worship, and perseverance are moving?

Key passages

John 17:20–26; Romans 8:18–25; 1 Corinthians 13:8–13; 1 Corinthians 15:35–58; Philippians 3:20–21; 1 John 3:1–3; Revelation 21–22.

Chapter thesis

The goal of salvation is unbroken communion with the triune God in the renewed creation: seeing Christ, sharing his holiness, loving without sin, worshiping with all peoples, and enjoying God forever.

Seeing and becoming

First John joins hope of seeing Christ with transformation: when he appears, believers will be like him because they will see him as he is. The vision of God is not passive spectacle. It completes sanctification. Every distortion of love, every divided desire, and every impulse toward sin will be gone.

This hope purifies present life. Christians do not pursue holiness to escape embodied existence but in anticipation of resurrected communion.

Resurrection, not disembodied escape

First Corinthians 15 centers Christian hope on bodily resurrection. God will transform mortality, defeat death, and make labor in the Lord enduringly meaningful. Revelation ends not with souls abandoning creation but with heaven and earth united, God dwelling with humanity, and a city filled with life, culture, worship, and holiness.

Love for God will therefore involve renewed bodies, relationships, service, sight, song, and joy. Creation’s gifts will no longer compete with the Giver because worship will be perfectly ordered.

Love perfected

Paul says love never ends while partial knowledge and gifts pass into completion. Eternal life is not static boredom. The infinite God cannot be exhausted by finite creatures. Perfect satisfaction does not eliminate discovery; it removes frustration, sin, and alienation.

The communion Jesus prays for in John 17 reaches fulfillment: the redeemed know the Father in the Son and share, by grace, in the love with which the Father loves the Son. They never become divine by nature, but are brought into covenant fellowship with God.

Every nation before the Lamb

The final company is multinational. Languages and peoples are not erased but gathered in reconciled worship. This vindicates mission and relativizes nationalism. The church now rehearses this future when diverse believers confess one Lord and share one table.

Hope for present love

Eternal hope changes grief, temptation, work, and worship. No act of love in Christ is wasted. No present numbness defines the future. No suffering has the final word. No rival love will remain attractive when God is seen without distortion.

The correct response is not escapism but steadfast labor, holiness, witness, and courage. Because resurrection is certain, believers can give themselves away.

Voice from the church: Augustine

Augustine’s opening confession speaks of the restless heart finding rest in God. Christian hope gives this longing its full biblical horizon: not absorption into the divine, but resurrected people delighting in the triune God within a renewed creation. Rest is fulfilled communion, not inactivity.

Important distinction

Eternal enjoyment is not endless self-focused pleasure. Joy is perfected because attention is finally ordered outward toward God, his glory, his people, and the goodness of renewed creation.

Chapter summary

The Christian journey ends in resurrection and the presence of God. Love will be undivided, knowledge clear, worship multinational, creation renewed, and joy complete. Present discipleship is preparation for that communion.

Reflect and discuss

  1. Is your picture of eternity biblical, embodied, and God-centered?

  2. How does resurrection alter the meaning of present faithfulness?

  3. Which rival love will appear small when Christ is seen?

Practice for this week

Read Revelation 21–22 slowly. Write a page titled “What will no longer be, what will be, and how I should live now.”

Prayer

Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, bring your saving work to completion. Keep my hope fixed on resurrection, the face of Christ, and the new creation. Purify my love now in anticipation of the day I will love you without rival forever. Amen.