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REFLECTION
It Will All Be New!
by Judy Webb
I really enjoy all the discoveries I stumble onto as I prepare to write these devotions. Researching in commentaries and various reference books I learn so much more than were I merely reading the Bible alone. Certain statements and verses will often bring up a question that needs answering, or a puzzling situation that requires I think and pray about it more before I draw any conclusions. That is how I find God uses these daily readings to grow me and my faith.
Today was no exception, as I read from Revelation 21, and especially verse 1: “Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away.” Having read this verse so automatically in the past, I missed something significant. I always viewed Revelation in general, and this chapter in particular, as one pointing out how the second coming of Christ will heal us and provide wholeness and clarity of body and mind.
One of the reference books I used (Revelation and the end of all things, by Craig R Koester) explains this in a new way to me. “Revelation envisions the salvation of the whole of creation, not only the redemption of individual souls.” (p. 188) Wow! Did you catch that? I always understood this to pertain to us as humans, that we would be made new and restored to our initially intended state. I never considered that the entire earth we live on will also be made new and restored to its intended state.
How many of us talk about the weather, especially as we begin to face down the winter season? When we have that occasional day of 60 or 70 degrees we boast on it and dream how wonderful it would be to have these temps all year long, and that extra shot of vitamin D that sunshine provides. So, for all of us here on earth now, as Believers, we can expect to experience what Adam and Eve did when they first lived in Eden. Creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.” (Romans 8:21)
Dear Jesus, what good news! Show me even more ways your Words can teach me. What wonder it will be to live in a world/eternity, as you originally created it for us. Help us to appreciate what we have now and even more, to anticipate what you will bring about for us who believe. Praise God from whom all blessings flow.
Judy:
Thank you for your investigating God'd Word and bringing out the fact all creation will be renewed to a beauty and grandeur none of us can imagine. Your commentary reminded me of C.S. Lewis' "Paralandra" and his fantastic ability to provide imagery of life as it should have been in the Garden and will be for eternity (a noted exception is that there will be no more sea).
All of Revelation makes me excited to leave this wonderful world and find rest in our eternal home. While I love my life, (who wouldn't), my wife, children, grandkids and friends, I cannot help but focus on what eternity with Jesus and that Great Cloud of Witnesses will be like. Can'…