We bury blessings made for us to enjoy long before heaven. Charles Spurgeon says, “He who grows not in the knowledge of Jesus, refuses to be blessed.” To fail to grow is to forfeit grace. To settle for where we are is to surrender more joy, more strength, more peace — more of God.

When I was first born again, I often lived like a boy stranded between two great blessings. Life with Christ was first about gratitude for what God had done for me at the cross and second about hope for what God would one day do for me in heaven. The in-between was about appreciating the past, anticipating the future, and not sinning in the present.

Following Jesus, however, is not mainly about avoiding sin or escaping hell. If we simplify Christianity down to waiting and obeying until God brings us home, we surrender some of his sweetest graces and reject gifts we wouldn’t trade for anything else. We bury blessings made for us to enjoy long before heaven. Charles Spurgeon says, “He who grows not in the knowledge of Jesus, refuses to be blessed.” To fail to grow is to forfeit grace. To settle for where we are is to surrender more joy, more strength, more peace — more of God.

We don’t simply live between two great blessings in the Christian life. Calvary and eternity do hem us in, behind and before, but between now and forever, we sail on relentless waves of grace and dive in ever deeper seas of love. “Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever” (Psalms 23:6). The blessings of heaven stream back into each new day, as we lean into Christ and strive to know him more.

Curse of Shallow Happiness

Spurgeon continues,

To know him is “life eternal,” and to advance in the knowledge of him is to increase in happiness. He who does not long to know more of Christ, knows nothing of him yet. Whoever has sipped this wine will thirst for more, for although Christ does satisfy, yet it is such a satisfaction that the appetite is not choked, but whetted.

That insight about our joy in Christ will rescue us both from unnecessary guilt and shallow happiness. Spurgeon wants to rescue us from shallow happiness by inviting us to know Christ more and more. The temptation will be to not make time, to not make ourselves more vulnerable, to not put in the effort — as if we knew Jesus enough already. But there’s so much more to know, so much more to see, so much more to enjoy. We will never find the bottom of him, even after a hundred thousand years with him in heaven.

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