The gambler had not expected to be here. But on reflection, he thought he had shown some kindness in his time. And this place was even more beautiful and satisfying than he had imagined. Everywhere there were magnificent crystal chandeliers, the finest handmade carpets, the most sumptuous foods. He tried his hand at roulette, and amazingly his number came up time after time. He tried the gaming tables and his luck was nothing short of remarkable: He won game after game. Indeed his winnings were causing quite a stir, attracting much excitement from the attentive staff.
This continued day after day, week after week, with the gambler winning every game, accumulating bigger and bigger earnings. Everything was going his way. He just kept on winning. And week after week, month after month, the gambler's streak of success remained unbreakable.
After a while, this started to get tedious. The gambler was getting restless; the winning was starting to lose its meaning. Yet nothing changed. He just kept on winning every game, until one day, the now anguished gambler turned to the angel who seemed to be in charge and said that he couldn't take it anymore. Heaven was not for him after all. He had figured he was destined for the "other place" nonetheless, and indeed that is where he wanted to be.
"But this is the other place," came the reply.
(That is my recollection of an episode of The Twilight Zone that I saw as a young child.)
Have you ever worried that you might grow bored in heaven, that things may lose their luster or taste, that the whole novelty and intrigue of heaven might fade as do most things on earth? When you sing, “When we’ve been there ten thousand years . . . we’ve no less days to sing his praise than when we’d first begun,” do you wonder whether or not to be encouraged by such a statement?
Sure, eternal life sounds wonderful at first. But unless you have a firm grasp on what the Bible has to say about eternal life, you may begin to wonder. “Eternity really is a long time,” you might think. “Is this something I really desire? After ten million years, will I really have the same desire I once had to go on existing here?”
Sure, the Bible says you will have a resurrected body far better than anything you knew on earth. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 15, says that your body will be stronger, fuller, more spiritual, more glorious, and everlasting. Your delight, your knowledge, your intellect, and all your affections will be renewed and restored so that you might enjoy Christ with perfected bodies.
So far so good. But that still doesn’t solve the problem of complacency. Isn’t it still possible that the joy will fizzle out?
In heaven, your capacity for joy will never cease to grow. Your capacity for love, knowledge, understanding, and joy are ever-expansive, progressive, incremental. Never-ending. The implications of this are staggering.
First, it halts any idea of heaven becoming boring, static, or all-too-familiar. How can it? If your ability to enjoy God and his gifts are always expanding, your perception of heaven will always be fuller, deeper, and richer. You will never look upon the same reality twice without some new way in which to enjoy it. You will look at each day through some new lens, where you see more clearly, understand more fully, and feel more deeply the truest joy — ever-increasing, ever-full joy for all eternity.
How, you may ask, is this possible? Won’t you run out of things to enjoy after ten million years?
Because God is infinite, he can be infinitely enjoyed. Jesus Christ is not concerned about running out of ways to keep up with your ever-increasing ability to enjoy him. His character is endlessly deep, unsearchable, and inexhaustible. Imagine the scope of the entire universe: trillions of shining stars, burning brighter than the sun; magnificent constellations; billions of spinning galaxies, all magnificent and vast, colorful and mysterious. Yet, they are finite. Brilliant, though they are, they fall utterly short in comparison to the breadth, length, height, and depth of the love of Christ. His love, grace, kindness, wisdom, power, and mercy each stand as never-ending, infinite universes for all your affections to delight in.
Here’s the other cool thing. If God is most glorified in you when you are most satisfied in him, the ever-increasing enjoyment of God for all eternity will simultaneously become the ever-increasing glorification of himself.
Now when you sing, “When we’ve been there ten thousand years,” you have no need of dread or doubt. You will not be the same person as you once were. After ten thousand years, you will look back and say, “How little I knew of him then. How much I have grown in my love for him. Yet, how much more I still have yet to know of his character!”
