Saturday, August 10, 2013

God's Eternal Purpose and Our Eternal Hope (Part 3 of 3)

In the past two blogs, I have spoken about how God's eternal purpose of bring glory to himself, gives us eternal hope.  We looked at this eternal hope by looking at Revelation 21:1-7.  So far, going through this
passage, we have seen two parts of God's three-fold purpose:

1) to create a companion for His Son (We are that companion that God is making suitable for His Son)
2) to create a place for Him to dwell and rest (That place is our eternal abode with Him)

Now we we see his third purpose, to share His trinitarian life with you and I.  You could call this purpose, God's desire to have a people (or family).

He will wipe away from them every tear from their eyes.
God, is comforting his people in this passage. We have many tears because of the effects of sin and how our sins have damaged our relationships: with one another and with God. God will make these relationships right, but in doing so, there will be many tears shed... They must be shed. So here God comforts us, as a mother comforts her weeping child.
Death will be no more; neither will there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more. The first things have passed away.”
A complete restoration and reversal of the curse from Gen 3. No more will our relationships with one another be cut off due to death, no more pain in our hearts from the loss of a relationship, either through death or through our own stubbornness. This old order of things has passed away. Our relationships with one another will grow for all eternity as we share the in the relationship of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

He who sits on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.”
This is a work he has already started in you and me. Paul writes, “if anyone be in Christ he is a new creation, the old things have passed away and behold all things are becoming new”. This is the concept that theologians call “here, but not yet”. "He who has begun a good work in you, will take it to completion." Here is the completeness of the work of God. We are new, our relationships are new, and one day this whole universe will be made new.
He said, “Write, for these words of God are faithful and true.”
God’s words are faithful and true, stay near them, listen to them, heed them, wrap them around your heart and mind, encourage one another with these words.
He said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. I will give freely to him who is thirsty from the spring of the water of life. He who overcomes, I will give him these things. I will be his God, and he will be my son. He who overcomes is the one who believes in Jesus Christ. For How can we enter this everlasting life given to us by the trinity, if we don’t even believe that such a life exists? It is only in Christ that we see such a life. 

The Scriptures tell us that a Father’s crown of glory is his children. Our heavenly Father’s glory is you and me. This relationship, which we get a preview of when we see the relationship between a parent and a child, will come to it’s fullness when God expels sin, presents us as a companion for His son, dwells with us, and we inherit what he has promised for his children. That is it... Forever we will live with God, sharing in his divine love, drinking from the water of life. The symbolic metaphor for the trinitarian life. That everlasting life available through Christ. The catch is... you must be thirsty. Are you thirsty for life as it should be, relationships as they should be? Come and drink. It starts now... “here, but not in it’s fullness”... Eternity begins today, relationships are restored today, marriages become fulfilling today... but they will be brought to their fullness on that day... when the dead are raised and heaven and earth merge.


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