Sometimes I just can’t wait for Heaven, but about the time I’m giving the Lord design ideas for the mansion He’s making me (John 14:2), something near and dear tugs at my heart, and this old earth pulls me back to the reality of the many reasons I’m not quite ready to leave it yet. When the blessing and favor of God touch life here, it’s a foretaste of what is to come when our race is completed, and we are called to Glory.
What could a new year possibly have in store for us? Our outlook on that depends on where we are looking for truth. Colossians 3:1-2 (NLT) says since you have been raised to new life with Christ, set your sights on the realities of heaven, where Christ sits in the place of honor at God’s right hand. Think about the things of heaven, not the things of earth. We are in this world, but not of this world.
While we are here, the Lord helps us navigate through the most difficult trials and tribulations, knowing that the best is yet to come! In the meantime, His supernatural guidance, strength, wisdom, and peace help us finish our race well. It doesn’t look nearly that hopeful if our sights are fixed on endless news broadcasts and worldly reports and statistics.
Heaven is the focal point that steadies our gait. Something far greater than we can imagine lies ahead! Let’s take a look at what the Apostle John recorded in Revelation 21:1-6 (NLT):
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.
I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, "Look, God's home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be His people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever."
And the One sitting on the throne said, "Look, I am making everything new!" And then He said to me, "Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true."
Everything will be new! “New” in this verse is the Greek word kainos, which means newness in terms of quality, as opposed to the Greek neos, which means creating something from nothing. When we get saved, Paul says we are a new (kainos) creation (2 Corinthians 5:17); we are not destroyed and recreated, but rather the quality of our nature becomes new, like that of Christ’s, instead of our carnal nature.
So it will be at the end of the age when everything undergoes a total transformation in God’s new (kainos) creation. Everything includes every single thing. Our bodies, for one, will be kainos creations. We won’t feel pain or suffer disease or know sorrow or fear. We won’t be puffy, smoky blobs of vapor floating around; rather, as Philippians 3:20-21 tells us, our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ, who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself. Voila! It will be a total transformation and a completely identifiable body like Christ’s.
Other things that will be transformed, kainos creations will include our environment and surroundings, for God will match the glorious Christ-like bodies we have with a glorious home for us, as well. What about our relationship with Him? It, too, will be a kainos creation, for we will no longer see Him dimly, but as the Contemporary English Version says in 1 Corinthians 13:12, now all we can see of God is like a cloudy picture in a mirror. Later we will see Him face to face. We don’t know everything, but then we will, just as God completely understands us.
A face-to-face relationship with our Father God. That is a reality of Heaven. None of us can predict what 2021 will hold, but we can know of a certainty that the newest of new years will someday be ours, forever and ever. Just start fixing your eyes on things above.