Fit for Heaven!

Praise the Lord for summer breaks and the opportunity to take your time waking up.
The other day I eagerly began my summer reading. (i.e. yesterday)
I walked to the nearest Starbucks and began to soak in Piper's God is the Gospel.

That thought that I have been meditating on was now being shouted from the highest heights of my mind and echoing deep deep into my heart and soul. Christ is what Christ offers!

"The saving love of God is God's commitment to do everything necessary to enthrall us with what is most deeply and durably satisfying, namely Himself."
-Piper

I guess what hit home is not just that God was merely willing to save us but that His plan of redemption gives us the right and the desire to enjoy God. We see this in the unparalleled love of Romans 5:8.
That His love was demonstrated in the giving of His Son. Which, no doubt, is mind-blowing! The accuracy of the offering of Christ to fulfill the law, atone properly for our sin and make us joint-heirs that can escape the corruption that is in the world through lust and look forward to heaven entirely on account of HIS righteousness.
BUT..(no strings attached here, it just gets better!)
The greater gift is that God offers HIMSELF.
He gives us (again I say) the right & desire to enjoy Him!

So you see, Salvation is great, but God is greater. He is better than salvation!
From our (or at least my) self-centered mind it is hard to comprehend how anything can be greater than salvation itself. but God is!
Imagine that, apart from His genuinely good, gracious, perfect, measure-of-everything-we-understand-to-be-right interactions with us He is still greater.
wow.
So my mind search high and low to try and comprehend this truth.
Close your eyes and imagine the most exquisite bouquet possible. It is large and bountifully overflowing with the most delicate,bold, extravagant flowers from all of God's good earth. There are the most delicious yellow roses. Beautiful, crisp sunflowers. and on and on. Their stems are free of thorns and trimmed perfectly to make a clean bouquet and not distract from the flowers.
It is breath-taking. Praise the Lord for fresh flowers! I love them so!
The point is, it's your wedding day, or your one year anniversary, or your first valentine's day..
And ladies, no matter how beautiful and longed for these fresh flowers are..they are not as great as the man you love giving them thoughtfully, intentionally and with love to you.
It would be beyond foolish to try to even compare the flowers he gifts you with him, the person giving them, right?

















Likewise the extravagant beauty of atonement, justification, adoption, sanctification, removal of wrath, imputed righteousness, new mercies every morning, faith, perseverance in the hand of God Himself.








The Groom is still greater.






So dear members of the Bride of Christ, I have a very important question.. Do you treasure God Himself far beyond his gifts?

"If you could have heaven, with no sickness, and with all the friends you ever had on earth, and all the food you ever liked, and all the leisure activities you ever enjoyed, and all the natural beauties you ever saw, all the physical pleasures you ever tasted, and no human conflict or natural disasters, could you be satisfied with heaven, if Christ were not there?"

Do you treasure Christ so that your answer is a definite and resounding NO?
Are we fit for Heaven where the Groom not his bouquet will be the supreme pleasure?