Anticipation


Tomorrow at The Donelson Fellowship concludes our year-long series of messages on Ten-Square:  100 Verses that Everyone on Earth Should Know by Heart.  Our closing verses are from Revelation 21-22 on heaven.  These chapters are written expressly to give us an on-going sense of anticipation. 

In his book, Stumbling on Happiness, Daniel Gilbert tells of one study in which volunteers were told they had won a free dinner at a fabulous French restaurant and were then asked when they would like to eat there.  Now?  Tonight?  Tomorrow?  The meal was at any time, but most of the volunteers put off the dinner for a week or so.  Researchers discovered that in doing so, the participants not only enjoyed the meal, but that had a full seven days of looking forward to it.  As one man put it, “Forestalling pleasure is an inventive technique for getting double the juice from half the fruit.”

 Having a sense of anticipation means we’re excited about the future, that we’re forward looking, and that we are looking forward.  It’s a sign of health and well-being in our emotions and in our spirituality.

 The dictionary defines anticipation as pleasurable expectation.  Well, this Bible has a special name for this attitude.  It calls it: HOPE.  In the Bible, hope is certainty-centered, not probability-based, and the Scripture calls this – our blessed hope.

 But it is reserved for those whose names are written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, for those who have been washed and saved and forgiven and cleansed by the blood of Jesus Christ, shed on Calvary.

 PS – For the full text of this study of Revelation 21-22, click here.