Former things are forgotten

Revelation 21:1-4

I can remember as if yesterday, falling out of the tree in the circle at the end of 3738 Liberty drive, or riding my brother’s bike and falling off to skin my arms and legs on the pavement, and who did I run to, my mother, she knew how to wipe away every tear from my eyes.  I was reminded of my life as a child as I read the account of the New Jerusalem, in Revelation 21:1-4.  John is seeing all things new; “Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.  I saw the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.  And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them.  They will be his people, and God himself will be with them.  They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  He will wipe every tear from their eyes.  There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

How difficult it is for me to see a world without hate, fear, pain, death, no longer a need to run to mother with my broken life, because God the Father and the Son will be there in a new heaven and a new earth.  This was Adam & Eve’s life till they broke fellowship with God and by their act of disobedience allowed sin, and sin brought about hate, fear, pain, death and broken relationships, especially with God the Father.  John was not the first to be shown what God is going to do in what you and I call the future, in the book of Isaiah 65:17, “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind.”  It is so difficult to see things as God sees them, because we are time critters, our life evolves around time, but God is the Creator of time and it has no control over him.  Our goal is to ask God to let us have a view from heaven, that is what Isaiah and John are seeing.

From the Back Porch,

Bob Rice