Over the past several years, I’ve been hyper-focused on tying every story, every passage in Scripture into the larger redemption narrative. Revelation 21 gives us one of the clearest pictures of where the overarching story is heading. John sees a new heaven and a new earth. He sees the Holy City coming down and, most importantly, hears the announcement that God’s dwelling is with humanity. Thankfully, things like death, grief, and pain won’t endure forever because the old order marked by death is passing away.
 
Then, we hear that wonderful statement from the One on the throne: “Look, I am making everything new.”

Those few words change everything about how we live before the final renewal arrives. Discipleship isn’t us preparing to abandon everything God made; it’s us learning to live faithfully within a world God intends to set fully right.
 
We can’t re-create creation on our own. That work remains God’s, but the certainty of that renewed future means we don’t have to surrender to the cynicism or gloom and doom of the present time.
 
We can, right now, become a people whose lives bear witness to what’s coming. We practice faithfulness instead of resignation, pursue holiness now because sin is absent from God’s future. Today we can show mercy because suffering will one day be vanquished. We value people as image-bearers, not disposable commodities, because we handle what God has made as gifts rather than inconsequential artifacts.
 
Only God can, and will, bring about the new creation, but our current obedience points towards it.
 
The King revealed where this story is going, so while creation groans, we learn to live as a people shaped by hope, by the world God is making new.

Where in your own life has disappointment or brokenness tempted you toward cynicism or resignation? What is one area of your life you can improve so that it reflects the future God promises in Revelation 21?

Father, You have promised us a world where death, grief, crying, and pain don’t rule the day. Keep me from cynicism while we wait for its completion. Help me form my life around the future You have promised and teach me to practice faithfulness, holiness, mercy, and to live in hope as a witness of the day You will, in fact, make everything new.

"Because God is making everything new, I want my life to reflect __________________."