All Things New (December 2011)

God has promised us that, in Christ Jesus, we will one day be clothed with bodies like these, but imperishable, and have lives like these, but without the pock-marked, bullet-riddled tell-tale signs of sin (1 Cor. 15:53-57). Can you imagine how great it will be to no longer have fear of death or harm, fear of sin’s consequences, or fear of separation from the relationship that even now gives life and breath to us?! There is no greater idea or hope on this earth with which to occupy ourselves. The redemption of the whole world–and that includes us!–is a glorious thing that we in Christ will witness for eternity as God reveals what He has known and seen since eternity past. This is the ultimate victory, the end of death and sin and isolation.

Take a moment to read Revelation 21:1-7. After all the evil, all the sin, all the selfishness of fallen humanity has run its course, and after the judgment of God falls against these things and restores His creation–all of it–we’ll see what we can scarcely imagine now. We’ll still have heaven and earth, but new. We’ll have bodies, but new. We’ll have God, but in a new way. Face to face, and with no fear of death, because death is gone, out of God’s presence. For eternity.

We all must respond to sin personally. It ultimately doesn’t matter what we think, but what God says about it–and the bottom line is we all have the disease. But this month we close the year out bringing our minds back to where they belong: on God. The work of God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit assures us that sin is not the final chapter of our story. In fact, because of Jesus, the final chapter of our story is the continuation of God’s story in a light we’ve never seen. We will be where we were designed to be, in the presence of God as God truly is, and no more allegory or metaphor or limiting descriptions will be needed. Free of sin forever, we will simply see that God is–and, for the first time in our lives, that will be enough.