What Is God’s Promise For Our Future Happiness?

What is God’s promise for our future happiness?

Sing, Jerusalem. Israel, shout for joy! Jerusalem, be happy and rejoice with all your heart. Zephaniah 3:14, NCV

I arrive where . . . the more complete the soul the more happy its joys, where is full knowledge of thee.

THE VALLEY OF VISION: A COLLECTION OF PURITAN PRAYERS AND DEVOTIONS

IN MY NOVEL SAFELY HOME, I tell the story of two Harvard roommates reunited in China twenty years after graduation. One is American businessman Ben Fielding, an entrepreneur in international high-tech corporate partnerships. The other is Li Quan, a brilliant academic who, when Ben last saw him, was headed home to be a professor at a Chinese university.

When Ben reconnects with Li Quan on a business trip to China, he’s shocked to find his old friend living in poverty, working as a locksmith’s assistant, and involved with a house church often raided by the police. Shortly after the two become reacquainted, Quan is imprisoned. Yet even in prison, to Ben’s astonishment, Quan remains cheerful, trusting God and rejoicing in his goodness despite enduring cruel treatment.

The longer Ben stays in China and the more time he spends with Li Quan and his wife and son, the more he envies his old friend. Even with everything he has going for him and everything working against Quan, Ben realizes he wishes he could trade places with his former roommate. Why? Because Quan has what Ben doesn’t: love and happiness. Li Quan drew his happiness from God, who was with him even in prison. Ben Fielding attempted to find happiness in everything the world had to offer . . . and failed miserably.

Central to Li Quan’s happiness, and that of millions of believers who have endured suffering, is the recognition that this world, as it now is, is not their home. Therefore they should not let their faith rest on their country, government, circumstances, health, and wealth. Rather, they know that God has made them citizens of another country. One day he will bring about a New Earth, which he will rule forever with justice and love.

This is why Peter says to suffering believers in this world gone wrong, “But we wait for what God has promised: new heavens and a new earth, where righteousness will be at home” (2 Peter 3:13, GNT).

World peace and universal happiness seem like utopian dreams, but these dreams are not far fetched, because according to God’s Word, utopia once existed and will again. (What’s far fetched is believing we are capable of creating this utopia ourselves!)

It should delight us to hear that the future involves a return to Paradise. Jesus promised his disciples that one day there will be a “renewal of all things” (Matthew 19:28, NIV), which the English Standard Version translates as “the new world” and the Complete Jewish Bible renders as “the regenerated world.”

Just as we’ll take on our eternal, resurrected bodies, the world itself will be resurrected. Peter preached that Christ would not return “until the time for restoring all the things about which God spoke by the mouth of his holy prophets long ago” (Acts 3:21). The New Century Version translates this as “when all things will be made right again.” Our entire experience on the New Earth will be of happiness far greater than Adam and Eve could have ever imagined!

The past will be remembered as that temporary period of rebellion when God’s creatures turned from him. We’ll celebrate endlessly that Jesus entered our history to redeem us and to restore the shared happiness of God and his people.

The apostle John, aided by an angel, time-traveled to the New Earth. There he saw “the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life.” He went on to explain what life will be like for those who live in the New Earth: “No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face” (Revelation 22:1-4, NIV).

As God’s children, we have a history of his faithfulness in the past and an assurance of a secure future, which should define how we view our present. This perspective can infuse us with happiness even in what would otherwise be the unhappiest times of our lives.

God so wants us to be happy that he plans to re-create the universe, raise us from the dead, and give us back the wonders of Eden multiplied a thousand times over. There we’ll live in joyful, never-ending communion with him, all bought and paid for with his own blood.

Seriously . . . could anything we might invent or imagine begin to compare with what God has promised and secured for us, the children he loves?

Lord Jesus, we don’t deserve anything you’ve done for us, much less all of it. Your grace truly is amazing. Thank you for redeeming us and preparing a paradise for us to share with you and each other forever. Help us to live each day anticipating what lies ahead and experiencing a foretaste of the boundless happiness that awaits us.