In Your presence is fullness of joy. Psalm 16:11
The United States Declaration of Independence says that one of our unalienable rights is
"the pursuit of happiness." I think we would all agree that pleasure, the
agreeable reaction of our senses to some stimulus, is a king-size ingredient of happiness.
Most people spend much of their leisure time pursuing pleasure in the hope of finding
happiness.
Scripture doesn't say that we shouldn't enjoy life. Indeed, Paul affirmed that God has
given us "richly all things to enjoy"like food and drink and the ability
to sing, laugh, and make music (1 Timothy 6:17).
Paul also warned us that excessive indulgence in God's good gifts may have a killing
effect on our enjoyment of the supremely good. "[The widow] who lives in
pleasure," he wrote, "is dead while she lives" (5:6). And the writer of
Ecclesiastes learned that pleasure cannot satisfy (Ecclesiastes 2:1).
Anyone who makes pleasure the main goal of life becomes desensitized to earth's greatest
delightfellowship with Godwhich is also the abiding joy of heaven. As David
wrote in Psalm 16:11, "In Your presence is fullness of joy; at Your right hand are
pleasures forevermore." No pleasure can rival that of fellowship with Goda
pleasure that is a foretaste of heaven.
-VCG
A wonderful Savior is Jesus my Lord,
A wonderful Savior to me;
He hideth my soul in the cleft of the rock,
Where rivers of pleasure I see.
-Crosby
Fellowship with Christ is the secret of happiness now and forever.