This evening I finished Chapter 8 and ready to start Chapter 9. On page 80-81 of this book Mr. Alcorn writes "The old gospel songs: "'This world is not my home. I'm just a-passing through', is a half truth. We may pass from the earth through death, but eventually we'll be back to live on the restored Earth.
We are pilgrims in this life, not because our home will never be on Earth, but because our eternal home is not currently on Earth. It was and it will be, but it's not now.
Will the Eden we long for return? Will it be occupied by familiar, tangible, physical features and fully embodied people? The Bible clearly answers yes.
The biblical doctrine of the New Earth implies something startling that if we want to know what the ultimate Heaven, our eternal home, will be like, the best place to start is by looking around us. We shouldn't close our eyes and try to imagine the unimaginable. We should open our eyes, because the present Earth is as much a valid reference point for envisioning the New Earth as our present bodies are a valid reference point for envisioning our new bodies. After all, we're living on the remnants of a perfect world, as the remnants of a perfect humanity. We shouldn't read into the New Earth anything that's wrong with this one, but can we not imagine what it would be like to be unhindered by disease and death? Can we not envision natural beauty untainted by destruction?"
As I read the sentence in the 4th paragraph above it stopped me in my tracks. The light bulb went off in my head and heart as I realized we are living on the remnants of the world that God created perfectly. As I look all around me, the earth used to be perfect. Totally perfect. We are living on what used to be perfect ground. We are living on a planet that God created in perfection. BUT, (Rich's favorite word in the Bible) man disobeyed God and brought sin to mankind. Just imagining that God created the world we live on perfectly makes me feel so small and insignificant. Who am I that God would choose me to be born? To experience the anticipated feeling of what Heaven will be like. What the New Earth will be like. I've seen some beautiful countryside in the USA and some in Canada. That is as far as I've ever traveled, but some of the natural creation that I've seen has taken my breath away. What will it be like one day when we no longer live on the remnants of what used to be perfect, but we will live where it is perfect and we no longer have a sin nature. Can you even imagine what that will be like?
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