“I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:26)
Imagine being able to enjoy what is most enjoyable with unbounded and increasing energy and passion forever.
This is not now our experience. Three things stand in the way of our complete satisfaction in this world.
Nothing in this world has a personal worth great enough to meet the deepest longings of our hearts.
We lack the strength to savor the best treasures to their maximum worth.
Our enjoyment of things here comes to an end. Nothing lasts.
But if the aim of Jesus in John 17:26 comes true, all this will change. He prays to his Father about us, “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” God does not love the Son the way he loves sinners. He loves the Son because the Son is infinitely worthy of love. That is, he loves the Son because the Son is infinitely lovely. Which means that this love is totally pleasure. Jesus prays that this pleasure that God has in his Son will be the same pleasure we have in the Son.
If God’s pleasure in the Son becomes our pleasure, then the object of our pleasure, Jesus, will be inexhaustible in personal worth. He will never become boring or disappointing or frustrating. No greater treasure can be conceived than the Son of God.
But add to this what Jesus prays for; namely, that our ability — our energy, our passion — to savor this inexhaustible treasure will not be limited by human weaknesses. We will enjoy the Son of God with the very enjoyment of his omnipotent Father.
God’s delight in his Son will be in us and it will be ours. And this will never end, because neither the Father nor the Son ever ends. Their love for each other will be our love for them, and therefore our loving them will never die.
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