Well, the end of another quarter. It is interesting that a version of the NIV entitles Revelation 22 as, "Eden Restored." I wonder. Will it really be "Eden Restored," or will "it" be something new, totally new?
Chapter 21 tells us, "Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth passed away....And He who sits on the throne said, 'Behold I am making all things new.'" Regardless of the "accurate theology" here, I remember well what my Grandpa Barnette said just as he was passing from this life, "The other side is looking better."
Grandpa Barnette was the only person I was ever with when someone passed from this life to "the next." I pray that you and I will see what he saw if we leave this life before the Trumpet sounds. The last two chapters of Revelation are full of wonderful promises for what is yet to come. We hear so little today and there are so few books written about "the life to come." I wonder if this is a reason Christendom is so full of depressed, hopeless people, attempting to get more out of this life than possible. Is it because they have so little "knowledge" and/or anticipation of "the other side?" So many "ministries" propagate the promises which they think are for this life, because so many don't want talk of the future, just talk of the now and the must-have-it-now "promises."
I bring us back to the Book of Revelation. "The best is yet to come," is what a popular song of long ago declared. Of course it declared that the "best" would still be in this life; it will not. The best to come is what 1 Peter 1 speaks of, "....reserved in Heaven for you." I share it with you in context. "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, to obtain an inheritance which is imperishable and undefiled and will not fade away, reserved in heaven for you." There; that should do it.
Father, in Jesus' Name, forgive me when I have attempted to get more from this life than You intended. Amen."
When Peter, an 18 year old Norwegian, "heard the call to evangelize China, on that day he not only emptied his wallet into the collection plate, but included a small note with the words, 'and my life.'"
