When Will I Be Satisfied?

“I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:26)

Imagine being able to enjoy what is most enjoyable with unbounded and increasing energy and passion forever.

This is not now our experience. Three things stand in the way of our complete satisfaction in this world.

Nothing in this world has a personal worth great enough to meet the deepest longings of our hearts.

We lack the strength to savor the best treasures to their maximum worth.

Our enjoyment of things here comes to an end. Nothing lasts.

But if the aim of Jesus in John 17:26 comes true, all this will change. He prays to his Father about us, “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” God does not love the Son the way he loves sinners. He loves the Son because the Son is infinitely worthy of love. That is, he loves the Son because the Son is infinitely lovely. Which means that this love is totally pleasure. Jesus prays that this pleasure that God has in his Son will be the same pleasure we have in the Son.

If God’s pleasure in the Son becomes our pleasure, then the object of our pleasure, Jesus, will be inexhaustible in personal worth. He will never become boring or disappointing or frustrating. No greater treasure can be conceived than the Son of God.

But add to this what Jesus prays for; namely, that our ability — our energy, our passion — to savor this inexhaustible treasure will not be limited by human weaknesses. We will enjoy the Son of God with the very enjoyment of his omnipotent Father.

God’s delight in his Son will be in us and it will be ours. And this will never end, because neither the Father nor the Son ever ends. Their love for each other will be our love for them, and therefore our loving them will never die.

John Piper 

Forever Satisfied

“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” (John 6:35)

This text points to the fact that believing in Jesus is a feeding and drinking from all that Jesus is. It goes so far as to say that our soul-thirst is satisfied with Jesus, so that we don’t thirst anymore.

He is the end of our quest for satisfaction. There is nothing beyond, and nothing better.

When we trust Jesus the way John intends for us to, the presence and promise of Jesus is so satisfying that we are not dominated by the alluring pleasures of sin (see Romans 6:14). This accounts for why such faith in Jesus nullifies the power of sin and enables obedience.

John 4:14 points in the same direction: “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” In accord with John 6:35, saving faith is spoken of here as a drinking of water that satisfies the deepest longings of the soul. And the satisfaction becomes productive, like a well overflowing.

It’s the same in John 7:37–38: “Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”’”

Through faith, Christ becomes in us an inexhaustible fountain of satisfying life that lasts forever and leads us to heaven, and on the way sets us free from the sinful illusions of other satisfactions. This he does by sending us his Spirit (John 7:38–39).

John Piper 

The Secret of Satisfaction

“Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’” HEBREWS 13:5

 

PONDER THIS

The secret of satisfaction, of true contentment, is God Himself. If you told the man on the street that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom and the secret of satisfaction, he would laugh at you. Hebrews 13:5 says, “Let your conduct be without covetousness; be content with such things as you have. For He Himself has said, ‘I will never leave you nor forsake you.’” The word “conduct” literally means behavior. The first secret of family contentment is God Himself. It is important to note we can’t just say we are content with God. We must also follow up with our behavior.

Does your behavior indicate you are content with God?

Where might you be seeking contentment outside of God? What might you need to change?

PRACTICE THIS

Make a list of the most frequent ways you spend your time. What does this say about where you seek contentment?

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

When Will I Be Satisfied?

“I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:26)

Imagine being able to enjoy what is most enjoyable with unbounded and increasing energy and passion forever.

This is not now our experience. Three things stand in the way of our complete satisfaction in this world.

Nothing in this world has a personal worth great enough to meet the deepest longings of our hearts.

We lack the strength to savor the best treasures to their maximum worth.

Our enjoyment of things here comes to an end. Nothing lasts.

But if the aim of Jesus in John 17:26 comes true, all this will change. He prays to his Father about us, “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” God does not love the Son the way he loves sinners. He loves the Son because the Son is infinitely worthy of love. That is, he loves the Son because the Son is infinitely lovely. Which means that this love is totally pleasure. Jesus prays that this pleasure that God has in his Son will be the same pleasure we have in the Son.

If God’s pleasure in the Son becomes our pleasure, then the object of our pleasure, Jesus, will be inexhaustible in personal worth. He will never become boring or disappointing or frustrating. No greater treasure can be conceived than the Son of God.

But add to this what Jesus prays for; namely, that our ability — our energy, our passion — to savor this inexhaustible treasure will not be limited by human weaknesses. We will enjoy the Son of God with the very enjoyment of his omnipotent Father.

God’s delight in his Son will be in us and it will be ours. And this will never end, because neither the Father nor the Son ever ends. Their love for each other will be our love for them, and therefore our loving them will never die.

John Piper 

The Quest in Every Heart

“Then he fell to the ground, and heard a voice saying to him, ‘Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting Me?’ And he said, ‘Who are You, Lord?’ Then the Lord said, “‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting. It is hard for you to kick against the goads.’”

ACTS 9:4-5

 

PONDER THIS

Jesus appeared to Saul, a proud pharisee on the road to Damascus. There was a bright light. The Lord spoke and Saul asked, “Who are you?” Saul was a man who seemed so confident. Outwardly he was confident, but inwardly he had a hunger to know God. All the answers and ways of religion and philosophy had not satisfied.

I’ve traveled around the world, and I’ve met a lot of people. They come from different backgrounds. But every person you’ll ever meet has the same heartache. It’s sin. Every person you’ll ever meet has the same hunger—it’s God. Every person is on a quest for God. Paul was on that quest and finally listened to the Lord’s voice that convicted him and changed his life forever.

Who around you is dissatisfied with life? How can you point that person to Christ?

How has Christ met the hunger you felt before coming to know Him?

PRACTICE THIS

Pray for those around you who are unsatisfied to become satisfied in Christ.

 

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

What It Means to Love God

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. (Psalm 63:1–2)

Only God will satisfy a heart like David’s. And David was a man after God’s own heart. That’s the way we were created to be.

This is the essence of what it means to love God: to be satisfied in him. In him — not just his gifts, but God himself, as the glorious person that he is!

Loving God will include obeying all his commands; it will include believing all his word; it will include thanking him for all his gifts. But all that is overflow. The essence of loving God is admiring and enjoying all he is. And it is this enjoyment of God that makes all of our other responses truly glorifying to him.

We all know this intuitively as well as from Scripture. Do we feel most honored by the love of those who serve us from the constraints of duty, or from the delights of fellowship?

My wife is most honored when I say, “It makes me happy to spend time with you.” My happiness is the echo of her excellence. And so it is with God. He is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

None of us has arrived at perfect satisfaction in God. I grieve often over the murmuring of my heart when I lose some earthly comfort or convenience. But I have tasted that the Lord is good. By God’s grace I now know the fountain of everlasting joy.

And so I love to spend my days luring people into joy until they say with me, “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple” (Psalm 27:4).

John Piper 

Forever Satisfied

“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” (John 6:35)

This text points to the fact that believing in Jesus is a feeding and drinking from all that Jesus is. It goes so far as to say that our soul-thirst is satisfied with Jesus, so that we don’t thirst anymore.

He is the end of our quest for satisfaction. There is nothing beyond, and nothing better.

When we trust Jesus the way John intends for us to, the presence and promise of Jesus is so satisfying that we are not dominated by the alluring pleasures of sin (see Romans 6:14). This accounts for why such faith in Jesus nullifies the power of sin and enables obedience.

John 4:14 points in the same direction: “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” In accord with John 6:35, saving faith is spoken of here as a drinking of water that satisfies the deepest longings of the soul. And the satisfaction becomes productive, like a well overflowing.

It’s the same in John 7:37–38: “Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”’”

Through faith, Christ becomes in us an inexhaustible fountain of satisfying life that lasts forever and leads us to heaven, and on the way sets us free from the sinful illusions of other satisfactions. This he does by sending us his Spirit (John 7:38–39).

John Piper 

When Will I Be Satisfied?

“I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:26)

Imagine being able to enjoy what is most enjoyable with unbounded and increasing energy and passion forever.

This is not now our experience. Three things stand in the way of our complete satisfaction in this world.

Nothing in this world has a personal worth great enough to meet the deepest longings of our hearts.

We lack the strength to savor the best treasures to their maximum worth.

Our enjoyment of things here comes to an end. Nothing lasts.

But if the aim of Jesus in John 17:26 comes true, all this will change. He prays to his Father about us, “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” God does not love the Son the way he loves sinners. He loves the Son because the Son is infinitely worthy of love. That is, he loves the Son because the Son is infinitely lovely. Which means that this love is totally pleasure. Jesus prays that this pleasure that God has in his Son will be the same pleasure we have in the Son.

If God’s pleasure in the Son becomes our pleasure, then the object of our pleasure, Jesus, will be inexhaustible in personal worth. He will never become boring or disappointing or frustrating. No greater treasure can be conceived than the Son of God.

But add to this what Jesus prays for; namely, that our ability — our energy, our passion — to savor this inexhaustible treasure will not be limited by human weaknesses. We will enjoy the Son of God with the very enjoyment of his omnipotent Father.

God’s delight in his Son will be in us and it will be ours. And this will never end, because neither the Father nor the Son ever ends. Their love for each other will be our love for them, and therefore our loving them will never die.

John Piper 

Are Your Deepest Needs Satisfied?

PRAY OVER THIS

“Then He said: ‘A certain man had two sons. And the younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the portion of goods that falls to me.” So he divided to them his livelihood. And not many days after, the younger son gathered all together, journeyed to a far country, and there wasted his possessions with prodigal living. But when he had spent all, there arose a severe famine in that land, and he began to be in want. Then he went and joined himself to a citizen of that country, and he sent him into his fields to feed swine.’” Luke 15:11-15

 

PONDER THIS

An inheritance is normally given when the father dies, but this son said, “I want it, and I want it now.” Essentially, he was saying to his father, “I wish you were dead. I don’t need you. I don’t want your love. I don’t want your fellowship. I don’t want your authority over me. I just want what you have. I don’t want you.” There are many people just like that today. They don’t want God, but they want what God has. They walk on God’s green earth. They breathe God’s fresh air. They live on the abundance that God has given, but they don’t want God. They want all these things from God, but they will never be satisfied until they have Him. The story of the prodigal son is a story of dissatisfaction. He was hungry. He didn’t have anything to satisfy his deepest longings.

You may be wearing a mask today. You may be laughing and going on your way, but deep in your heart, if you don’t know the Lord Jesus Christ, there is a hunger for God. If you don’t know the Lord Jesus, there is a God-shaped vacuum in your heart. And so, what our Lord is talking about here is the weakness of man without God.

What are some things you have that are valuable in the eyes of the world? How have you seen that those things ultimately cannot satisfy?

Who is far from God but close to you? How can you invest in those relationships?

PRACTICE THIS

Pray and consider what opportunities you have to minister to someone who needs to find satisfaction in God.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Forever Satisfied

“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” (John 6:35)

This text points to the fact that believing in Jesus is a feeding and drinking from all that Jesus is. It goes so far as to say that our soul-thirst is satisfied with Jesus, so that we don’t thirst anymore.

He is the end of our quest for satisfaction. There is nothing beyond, and nothing better.

When we trust Jesus the way John intends for us to, the presence and promise of Jesus is so satisfying that we are not dominated by the alluring pleasures of sin (see Romans 6:14). This accounts for why such faith in Jesus nullifies the power of sin and enables obedience.

John 4:14 points in the same direction: “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” In accord with John 6:35, saving faith is spoken of here as a drinking of water that satisfies the deepest longings of the soul. And the satisfaction becomes productive, like a well overflowing.

It’s the same in John 7:37–38: “Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”’”

Through faith, Christ becomes in us an inexhaustible fountain of satisfying life that lasts forever and leads us to heaven, and on the way sets us free from the sinful illusions of other satisfactions. This he does by sending us his Spirit (John 7:38–39).

John Piper 

Saving Faith Isn’t Easily Satisfied

If they had been thinking of that land from which they had gone out, they would have had opportunity to return. But as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one. (Hebrews 11:15–16)

Faith sees the promised future that God offers and “desires” it. “As it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.” Dwell on this for a moment.

There are many people who water down what saving faith is by making it a mere decision with no change of what one desires and seeks. But the point of this text in the great faith chapter in the Bible — Hebrews 11 — is that living and dying by faith means having new desires and seeking new satisfactions.

Verse 14 says that the saints of old (who are being commended for their faith here in Hebrews 11) were seeking a different kind of country than this world offered. And verse 16 says they were desiring something better than what a present earthly existence could offer. “They desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.”

They had been so gripped by God that nothing short of being with God would satisfy.

So, this is true saving faith: seeing the promises of God from afar, and experiencing a change of values so that you desire and seek after and trust in the promises of God above what the world has to offer.

John Piper 

When Will I Be Satisfied?

“I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:26)

Imagine being able to enjoy what is most enjoyable with unbounded and increasing energy and passion forever.

This is not now our experience. Three things stand in the way of our complete satisfaction in this world.

Nothing in this world has a personal worth great enough to meet the deepest longings of our hearts.

We lack the strength to savor the best treasures to their maximum worth.

Our enjoyment of things here comes to an end. Nothing lasts.

But if the aim of Jesus in John 17:26 comes true, all this will change. He prays to his Father about us, “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” God does not love the Son the way he loves sinners. He loves the Son because the Son is infinitely worthy of love. That is, he loves the Son because the Son is infinitely lovely. Which means that this love is totally pleasure. Jesus prays that this pleasure that God has in his Son will be the same pleasure we have in the Son.

If God’s pleasure in the Son becomes our pleasure, then the object of our pleasure, Jesus, will be inexhaustible in personal worth. He will never become boring or disappointing or frustrating. No greater treasure can be conceived than the Son of God.

But add to this what Jesus prays for; namely, that our ability — our energy, our passion — to savor this inexhaustible treasure will not be limited by human weaknesses. We will enjoy the Son of God with the very enjoyment of his omnipotent Father.

God’s delight in his Son will be in us and it will be ours. And this will never end, because neither the Father nor the Son ever ends. Their love for each other will be our love for them, and therefore our loving them will never die.

John Piper 

Jesus Satisfies Our Deepest Longing

PRAY OVER THIS

“You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife, nor his male servant, nor his female servant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor anything that is your neighbor’s.” Exodus 20:17

 

PONDER THIS

One day, I was witnessing to a man, and I asked him to give his heart to Christ. He said, “I’m doing just fine. I’ve got a steady income. I have a good wife. My house and car are paid for. I’m doing fine. I really don’t need what you’re talking about.” I looked him right in the eye and said, “Sir, would you be absolutely honest with me?” I asked him, “Sir, do you have peace in your heart?” I saw his eyes as they welled up with tears and he said, “No! I don’t have peace. How did you know?” I said, “Because the Bible says, ‘There is no peace . . . for the wicked’” (Isaiah 57:21). If you don’t have peace, you’re poor! I don’t care what else you have. If you have the peace of God that passes understanding, if you have a hope that is steadfast and sure, then you are abundantly rich.

What is the secret of satisfaction? Trust in the Lord; get to know Him. A covetous person is a person who has not put his or her eyes on the Lord. Only God can satisfy the deepest longing of your heart. God has engineered you so that this world will not satisfy the hole in your heart.

How has your relationship with God given you peace?

Who in your circle does not live at peace with God?

PRACTICE THIS

Pray for those you know who do not have peace with God.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Forever Satisfied

“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” (John 6:35)

This text points to the fact that believing in Jesus is a feeding and drinking from all that Jesus is. It goes so far as to say that our soul-thirst is satisfied with Jesus, so that we don’t thirst anymore.

He is the end of our quest for satisfaction. There is nothing beyond, and nothing better.

When we trust Jesus the way John intends for us to, the presence and promise of Jesus is so satisfying that we are not dominated by the alluring pleasures of sin (see Romans 6:14). This accounts for why such faith in Jesus nullifies the power of sin and enables obedience.

John 4:14 points in the same direction: “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” In accord with John 6:35, saving faith is spoken of here as a drinking of water that satisfies the deepest longings of the soul. And the satisfaction becomes productive, like a well overflowing.

It’s the same in John 7:37–38: “Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”’”

Through faith, Christ becomes in us an inexhaustible fountain of satisfying life that lasts forever and leads us to heaven, and on the way sets us free from the sinful illusions of other satisfactions. This he does by sending us his Spirit (John 7:38–39).

John Piper 

Fully Satisfied in Jesus

PRAY OVER THIS

“For He satisfies the longing soul, and fills the hungry soul with goodness.” Psalm 107:9

 

PONDER THIS

You can have programs at church that will get people to come. You can get them there with fun, dinners, plays, and programs, but if that is all you give them, and you don't give them Jesus, then you have missed the whole thing. What you catch them with is what you have to keep them with. There are different platforms for preaching the Gospel, but there is no substitute for the Gospel. Christ came as the Bread of Life, that people might be saved. They must be born again. So many churches are missing this today. Jesus is our spiritual bread.

Men are searching everywhere for satisfaction. They’ll never find it until they find it in the Lord Jesus. What did God create you for? You may think, “God created me to serve Him.” But if He only wanted someone to serve Him, He’d get somebody a lot better than you or I. He could get angels. God made you to love Him. That’s what you were made for—to know Him and to love Him. God made a bird to fly in the sky and a fish to swim in the sea. God made you to know Him, to love Him, and to worship Him, and until you do, you’ll be like a bird in the sea or a fish in the air; you’ll be out of your element. “In Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28a).

Who do you know who lives a life that is satisfied in Jesus? How does that testimony shine through that person?

If God has made you to know Him and to love Him, how can you make these things more of a priority in your life?

PRACTICE THIS

Write out your normal routine. Now write another routine where knowing and loving God would be the top priority. Note what is similar and what is different.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

Is Anyone Truly Satisfied?

PRAY OVER THIS

“The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” Psalm 23:1

 

PONDER THIS

How many truly satisfied people do you know? People can have all of the things of this world and not be satisfied. John Muir, the great naturalist, was speaking to a Mr. Harriman—a man of great wealth and influence. John Muir said to Mr. Harriman, “I am richer than you are.” Mr. Harriman responded, “Well, how is that?” He said, “Because you don’t have all you want, and I do. So, I am richer than you.”

Ecclesiastes 5:10 says, “He who loves silver will not be satisfied with silver.” But it's not just money that fails to truly satisfy. There’s really nothing that can satisfy us apart from the Lord. “The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.” That's the only way that anyone will ever have satisfaction. It is only when you can say that phrase wholeheartedly that you can also say, “I shall not want.”

Is there a time in your life that you were truly satisfied?

How does living with the Lord as our Shepherd change our struggle with contentment?

PRACTICE THIS

Make a list of different things in which you have tried to find satisfaction. Write down the outcome of pursuing those things. Pray and ask God to help you find satisfaction in Him.

LWF Dr. Adrian Rogers 

When Will I Be Satisfied?

“I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” (John 17:26)

Imagine being able to enjoy what is most enjoyable with unbounded and increasing energy and passion forever.

This is not now our experience. Three things stand in the way of our complete satisfaction in this world.

Nothing in this world has a personal worth great enough to meet the deepest longings of our hearts.

We lack the strength to savor the best treasures to their maximum worth.

Our enjoyment of things here comes to an end. Nothing lasts.

But if the aim of Jesus in John 17:26 comes true, all this will change. He prays to his Father about us, “I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” God does not love the Son the way he loves sinners. He loves the Son because the Son is infinitely worthy of love. That is, he loves the Son because the Son is infinitely lovely. Which means that this love is totally pleasure. Jesus prays that this pleasure that God has in his Son will be the same pleasure we have in the Son.

If God’s pleasure in the Son becomes our pleasure, then the object of our pleasure, Jesus, will be inexhaustible in personal worth. He will never become boring or disappointing or frustrating. No greater treasure can be conceived than the Son of God.

But add to this what Jesus prays for; namely, that our ability — our energy, our passion — to savor this inexhaustible treasure will not be limited by human weaknesses. We will enjoy the Son of God with the very enjoyment of his omnipotent Father.

God’s delight in his Son will be in us and it will be ours. And this will never end, because neither the Father nor the Son ever ends. Their love for each other will be our love for them, and therefore our loving them will never die.

John Piper 

What It Means to Love God

O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary, beholding your power and glory. (Psalm 63:1–2)

Only God will satisfy a heart like David’s. And David was a man after God’s own heart. That’s the way we were created to be.

This is the essence of what it means to love God: to be satisfied in him. In him — not just his gifts, but God himself, as the glorious person that he is!

Loving God will include obeying all his commands; it will include believing all his word; it will include thanking him for all his gifts. But all that is overflow. The essence of loving God is admiring and enjoying all he is. And it is this enjoyment of God that makes all of our other responses truly glorifying to him.

We all know this intuitively as well as from Scripture. Do we feel most honored by the love of those who serve us from the constraints of duty, or from the delights of fellowship?

My wife is most honored when I say, “It makes me happy to spend time with you.” My happiness is the echo of her excellence. And so it is with God. He is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

None of us has arrived at perfect satisfaction in God. I grieve often over the murmuring of my heart when I lose some earthly comfort or convenience. But I have tasted that the Lord is good. By God’s grace I now know the fountain of everlasting joy.

And so I love to spend my days luring people into joy until they say with me, “One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple” (Psalm 27:4).

John Piper 

Forever Satisfied

“I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” (John 6:35)

This text points to the fact that believing in Jesus is a feeding and drinking from all that Jesus is. It goes so far as to say that our soul-thirst is satisfied with Jesus, so that we don’t thirst anymore.

He is the end of our quest for satisfaction. There is nothing beyond, and nothing better.

When we trust Jesus the way John intends for us to, the presence and promise of Jesus is so satisfying that we are not dominated by the alluring pleasures of sin (see Romans 6:14). This accounts for why such faith in Jesus nullifies the power of sin and enables obedience.

John 4:14 points in the same direction: “Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” In accord with John 6:35, saving faith is spoken of here as a drinking of water that satisfies the deepest longings of the soul. And the satisfaction becomes productive, like a well overflowing.

It’s the same in John 7:37–38: “Jesus stood up and cried out, ‘If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, “Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.”’”

Through faith, Christ becomes in us an inexhaustible fountain of satisfying life that lasts forever and leads us to heaven, and on the way sets us free from the sinful illusions of other satisfactions. This he does by sending us his Spirit (John 7:38–39).

John Piper 

The Satisfaction That Defeats Sin

Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” (John 6:35)

What we need to see here is that the essence of faith is being satisfied with all that God is for us in Christ.

Defining faith this way emphasizes two things. One is the God-centeredness of faith. It is not merely the promises of God that satisfy us. It is all that God himself is for us in Jesus. Faith embraces God in Christ as our treasure — not just God’s promised gifts.

Faith banks its hope not just on the real estate of the age to come, but on the fact that God will be there (Revelation 21:3). “I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.’”

And even now what faith embraces most earnestly is not just the reality of sins forgiven (as precious as that is), but the presence of the living Christ in our hearts and the fullness of God himself. In Ephesians 3:17–19 Paul prays “that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith . . . that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

The other thing emphasized in defining faith as being satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus is the term “satisfaction.” Faith is the quenching of the soul’s thirst at the fountain of God. In John 6:35 we see that “believing” means “coming” to Jesus to eat and drink the “bread of life” and the “living water” (John 4:10, 14), which are nothing other than Jesus himself.

Here is the secret of the power of faith to break the enslaving force of sinful attractions. If the heart is satisfied with all that God is for us in Jesus, the power of sin to lure us away from the wisdom of Christ is broken.

John Piper