God keeps bringing me back to this scripture. It is in The Revelation. Chapter 21.
Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and first earth had passed away.Also, there was no more sea.
That is something that most folks over look in my oppinion. I hear so much of " well, when we get to heaven" I dont believe heaven is our final destination. I believe that it will be like the original Adam and Eve days. Where they walked with God and saw his face and no sin, just love. What are your thoughts? Scriptures welcome...lol jk
Well, I just started asking the Lord about 5 months ago about what it will be like in heaven. Things in my spirit began to upset me. I started researching it out and came across that verse. I am so tired of people talking about when we get to heaven. I always envied the adam and eve days, and thought of how many things would be very different if they had not sinned and that is when the light bulb went off. I am still very new at all of this, and will always be in a state of learning, but felt like this was in deed correct. I am not in any church, I have fellowship with my prayer partners and good friends. I haven't seemed to find a church that is functioning the way the Lord intended it to function... but that is an intirely different subject..lol
You are right ... the Bible teaches we will spend eternity in the New Jerusalem on the new earth and will experience God among us. Might want to get a copy of my book "Armageddon Now" when you study Rev 21 and 22.
My guess is that few people attempt to read the Book of Revelation because of the difficult apocalyptic literature. Since the New Heaven and the New Earth are mentioned at the end (of course, it is mentioned in the Book of Isaiah) of the Book of Revelation, most people don't make it that far. That's one of the primary reasons I wrote "Armageddon Now"; so people could simply read through the book and have a good understanding about what it says.
As far as our final destination - I don't care if we end up living out eternity in inner-city Cleveland...as long as it is with our Lord. I'm less interested in the accomodations - more in the company. :)
By the way...no intentional disrespect to those souls that reside in Cleveland! (It would appear I can't stay out of trouble here.) Of course, there's no sense in getting too emotially attached to any place we live. We're just 'renting the space'...
It is important for us to realize that heaven is not our goal, God is! Heaven is a benefit of our relationship with Jesus, but would be worthless without Him. The new heaven and new earth would be worthless as well without Him. Our goal must always be God Himself.
Many scholars and theologians believe that the world and the universe as we know it will be destroyed by God and the 'saved' will inherit the NewEarth in a new reality and dimension where there will be no more sin and violence and evil (as satan will be destroyed) and all animals and humans will live together in perfect harmony. There will be no more carnivores, so there won't be a need to kill animals for food. Jesus Himself will rule the New Earth from New Jerusalem where all life on earth will be under His domain.
(subject comment)
I must admit to finding myself increasingly troubled by recent events as reported in local & national news. Now when I say 'recent' I mean the last 18-24 months for sure, but actually this is part of a much larger trend going back many more years in our nation's history. These 'events' can be generally categorized as a national drift away from God. Evidence of this can be seen literally everywhere: 1) increasingly larger elements of our society are aggressively trying to remove most references to our faith in all areas of public domain, and in some private arenas as well; 2) genuine personal morality and Godly values take a back seat to situational imperatives (elected public officials, movie stars, business leaders, news media, etc, etc.); 3) new laws (spawned from the court system and from additions/edits to our constitution) take us into areas where we are compelled to tolerate, financially support, and even comply with activities that stand in direct contridiction to God's laws; 4) current social rules of public communication effectively try to silence any person's attempt to project references to a personal value system - especially if it is Christian-based.
As most will agree, our nation was founded, as clearly recorded in history, by God-respecting, God-fearing people, seeking, among other things, freedom in their expression of faith. How far we have come!
Now, I do understand my brothers & sisters in the Lord, that the erosion of social values is not a new phenomena in the history of the world. These cycles have been repeated time and again. A certain nation will grow to greatness, reside on the mountaintop of their success and strength for a brief season, and then the inevitable happens. The nation begins to forget those things that brought them greatness, and they crumble into ruin from within. I also know that the natural process at work in the universe is atrophy. All things move toward decay over time. But when we look at these events from a biblical basis, what first comes to mind is prophesy. These events, these times were certainly foretold. We are therefore, I believe, getting very close to the end times.
What my troubled soul is wrestling with (for the remaining days my Lord leaves me here) is this: what should our response be to these things? Truly - these troubling events of our time are not likely going to change for the better on their own. For it is true that political/social ills can't change until the hearts of men change. But do we not have a response today as Christians? Are not some souls in the world looking to the children of salt & light to demonstrate a public response worthy of our God - of our faith? Yes, we will continue to pray - for our leaders and our nation. And we will continue to work the fields of harvest as we are led, one soul at a time, to continue His work of changing hearts. But as to a public stand on these issues...do we have an active role to play? And what should that role look like?
Thanks for letting this old man vent today.