I come to make all things new...

This past Tuesday night, Allan taught the Bible study. In one of his points, he recalled for us a scene in The Passion, where Jesus was carrying his cross, right past his mother Mary, and he stumbled. Mary saw this, and remembered when Jesus, as a little boy, one time stumbled as he was playing. Jesus, in one of the most impacting lines of the movie, looks up at his mother and says, "I come to make all things new."

I am reading a book by Randy Alcorn entitled Heaven. It's a long book, but a good one, one my mother bought for me (thanks mom!). For some reason I never read more than a chapter at a time, maybe because I want it to last, to savor it. The book talks about...heaven! One of the main focuses of the book is to challenge what we've perhaps been taught about heaven. He insists that when the Bible talks about a country and a city and streets and rivers, it is making reference to that which we already know. That heaven happens in the context of a restored, new earth. Heaven happens...here. A very helpful chart is on pages 82-85.

There have been a lot of historical events that I wish I could have been witness to, or even actively involved in. But one event that I really, really desire to see is what happens to the earth and everything in it when the curse is lifted. I can imagine that when the earth stops groaning, it will start singing. Jesus came to make all things new. Some of us have already been made new, but not completely, not totally. We still struggle with sin, and the effects of the curse. Can you imagine what will happen when that weight of consequence is removed?? The outpouring of joy will be overwhelming. The promise of restoration complete.

Here's Allan, pounding on the drums during last Sunday's service.