All Things New

God is making all things new.

Heaven needs to become real to us, and it should impact how we live.

"Then I saw..." is the key idea in the book of Revelation—it's having our eyes opened to what God is doing now and around us. John tells us, on behalf of Jesus, that there is a new heaven and a new earth.

When we reach the end of the story, we also reach the beginning. The story starts and ends with creation.

“The biblical story began, quite logically, with a beginning. Now, it draws to an end, not quite so logically, with a beginning. The sin-ruined creation of Genesis is restored in the sacrifice-renewed creation of Revelation. The products of these beginning and ending acts of creation are the same: “the heavens and earth” in Genesis, and “a new heaven and earth” in Revelation. The story that has creation for its first word, has creation for its last word: “The end is where we start from.” (T.S. Elliot)"

— Eugene Peterson

It's not the end; it's a new beginning—a new heaven and a new earth.

The whole earth yearns for this future city with God (Romans 8:22). Creation groans, knowing that all things will be renewed and restored at the end of the day.

"I am making all things new," not "I am making all new things." He takes the broken things and makes them new. It will be a familiar place. We see what we understand and it's perfected in a way we cannot begin to imagine. Everything in the new heaven and the new earth will be better than what we are experiencing right now. You're going to spend your future on a perfect earth. It's a place for you to return to the start that God created in the beginning.

John saw a new city of God coming down from heaven. It was not built by the efforts of anyone but God.

We started in a garden, but we ended in a city. It's a city of perfection—God collecting His people from every nation, tribe, and tongue into an eternal gathering. This is what is coming down from heaven. Abraham knew a new city was coming. There was no architect or designer; God was the designer.

Heaven would be God's dwelling place among the people.

God has shepherded more than one group through the covenant—it's every nation, tribe, people, and tongue.

Heaven is not about the streets of gold. It's about being with God and about God being with us. The prize of heaven is God.

“If we don’t want God, or don’t want him very near, we can hardly be expected to be very interested in heaven.”

— Eugene Peterson

If you don't love God and want your life to be about God, then you are definitely not ready for heaven because heaven is about God being in the midst of people.

It's about the relationship with God and His created ones—it's at the epicenter. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death, crying, mourning, or pain. The old order of things has passed away.

The holiest place was a cube, and now it is the Holy City. The Holy City is a cube because it is the Holy of Holies because God dwells there. Man never dwelled with God in the first cube, but man dwelled forever in the cube that is the Holy City of God. In the restored earth and heaven, in the city of the Holy of holies, Jesus Christ is still the Son of God slain before the foundation of the world.

Only when you see people face-to-face is when you truly know them. We're going to see His face. And The Father's House is being built right now.

In this corrupted world, we're agents of a God who is making all things new. How can I make new what is around me? He's not going to build the Kingdom—He's building it right now. It is here right now. I'm living as a Kingdom agent, mentally keeping stock of what I am a part of. For a season, I'm here in a broken world.

I've got my eye on my city. Praise God that we have a future that is better than we have ever dreamed.