Revealed // Creator // Week Four, All Things New
It’s easy for us to imagine that the Garden of Eden was all rest and play with no work. Subsequently, our idea of heaven can easily be all cloud-snuggled naps and angel wings. Although there is a promised peace that is coming with Christ’s return and the new heavens and new earth, I don’t believe it will be void of work. We are created in the image of God, and that includes working. He works—he creates, he moves, he watches, he protects, he provides, he works miracles. The psalmist even writes that he does not slumber or sleep (Psalm 121:3-4). He is an active God, and his movement is creative.
Just as Creator God continues to be powerfully at work within us making us new creations (Colossians 1:29), he also promises that he is making all things new (Revelation 21:5). As Jesus readied the disciples for his death, resurrection, and departure, he said to them, I go to prepare a place for you…And if I go to prepare a place, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also (John 14:2-3). His statement is threaded with God’s original intent in creation—to be in relationship with man. In Revelation, John sees the new heaven and earth, and descending out it from God is the new Jerusalem.
And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man (Revelation 21:2-3).
In this newness, the provisions God made for us in the fall of man. What will it be like to be in relationship with God without decay and death, without pain and tears? What will it be like to work with God without burden and toil? What will it be like to move and breathe completely redeemed? Unfathomable. We make accommodations for our pain more than we know, autopilot mode at times. I wholeheartedly believe we have tastes of “on earth as it in heaven”, but my imagination just can’t wrap around the glory to come.
As new creations we live in the tension of the in between. While we are no longer in Eden and we are waiting on the new heaven and earth to come, there is work for us to do. It will have more toil than God intended, we are still in the fall, but it has a renewed (like us) purpose. All our work now should in some way glorify God. Although we can rest as children of God that he is our provider, we are still to be faithful with what God has given us. Jesus instructs us to let our light shine before me so that they may see your good works and give to glory to our Father in heaven (Matthew 5:16). The light we each shine is one in the same—Jesus in us. We are new creations! I believe this light shining in us is one of the tastes I mentioned above. It is foretaste of the new Holy city where Jesus’ glory is the only light needed (Revelation 21:22). The work we each do varies from person to person. Christians are not called to have the same jobs. We are called to let our light shine in whatever work we choose. As we do, we are pointing people to Jesus — so they too can be new creations!
This week, as we you read the following scriptures, consider how God is active. How he is working in the details of your life and making all things new. Also, consider how, as we co-labor with Christ, it affects the people in our day-to-day living.
Day One
Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going.” Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?” Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him.” John 14:1 – 7
Day Two
Yet among the mature we do impart wisdom, although it is not a wisdom of this age or of the rulers of this age, who are doomed to pass away. But we impart a secret and hidden wisdom of God, which God decreed before the ages for our glory. None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But, as it is written, “What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined, what God has prepared for those who love him”— these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 1 Corinthians 2:1-10
From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him. You meet him who joyfully works righteousness, those who remember you in your ways. Isaiah 64: 4-5
Day Three
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And 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. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. Revelation 21:1-6
Day Four
And I saw no temple in the [new Jerusalem], for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb. By its light will the nations walk, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it, and its gates will never be shut by day—and there will be no night there. They will bring into it the glory and the honor of the nations. But nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life. Revelation 21:22-27
You have turned for me my mourning into dancing; you have loosed my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness, that my glory may sing your praise and not be silent. Psalm 30: 11-12
Day Five
For the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him. 2 Chronicles 16:9
The Lord will work out his plans for my life—for your faithful love, O Lord, endures forever. Don’t abandon me, for you made me. Psalm 138:8 (NLT)
For the word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart. And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account. Hebrews 4:12
This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant. The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but [Jesus] holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them. Hebrews 7:25
Day Six
What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you believed, as the Lord assigned to each. I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth. He who plants and he who waters are one, and each will receive his wages according to his labor. For we are God’s fellow workers. You are God’s field, God’s building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 3:5-11
For [the kingdom of heaven] will be like a man going on a journey, who called his servants and entrusted to them his property. To one he gave five talents, to another two, to another one, to each according to his ability. Then he went away. He who had received the five talents went at once and traded with them, and he made five talents more. So also he who had the two talents made two talents more. But he who had received the one talent went and dug in the ground and hid his master’s money. Now after a long time the master of those servants came and settled accounts with them. And he who had received the five talents came forward, bringing five talents more, saying, ‘Master, you delivered to me five talents; here, I have made five talents more.’ His master said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant. You have been faithful over a little; I will set you over much. Enter into the joy of your master.’
…He also who had received the one talent came forward, saying, ‘Master, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you did not sow, and gathering where you scattered no seed, so I was afraid, and I went and hid your talent in the ground. Here, you have what is yours.’ But his master answered him, ‘You wicked and slothful servant! You knew that I reap where I have not sown and gather where I scattered no seed? Then you ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and at my coming I should have received what was my own with interest. Matthew 25:14-21;24-27
Day Seven – Selah
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©2018 Adrienne H. Scott
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