GodReflection: How About a Better Way?
“I will come back” (John 14:3).
Today I bring this series of posts on The Way of Jesus to a close with two solid promises from Holy God. They would have to rate near the top of greatest promises ever given. These promises are guaranteed by The Holy—Father God, Jesus Son, Holy Spirit—who cannot lie.
Listen as Jesus comforts his disciples—and all who will follow in his way—as he shares with them that he must leave and return to Father God. He wants them and us to know he will return.
“Do not let your hearts be troubled. You believe in God. Believe in me also. There are many rooms in my Father’s house. If this were not true, would I have told you that I am going there? Would I have
told you that I would prepare a place for you there?
If I go and do that, I will come back. And I will take you to be with me. Then you will also be where I am. You know the way to the place where I am going” (John 14: 1-4).
Not a lot of detail. Certainly, full of mystery and wonder. But we can count on it—he will return.
Within His Return Our Return are two promises. First, Jesus will return. His mission—to set all things in order and return God’s creation to its original perfection—will be complete.
That will result in the fulfilment of the second promise. It will mean our return to perfection.
Hear John the apostle share the voice of Jesus Christ the Risen God as he promises our return to the perfect unblemished state of creation.
Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more.
And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “See, the home of God is among mortals.
He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples, and God himself will be with them and be their God; he will wipe every tear from their eyes. Death will be no more; mourning and crying and pain will be no more, for the first things have passed away.”
And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new.” Also, he said, “Write this, for these words are trustworthy and true” (Revelation 21:1-5).
“I am making all things new.” What a promise! Imagine who you are right now. I think of all my
imperfections—too numerous to count—add to those my aches, pains, pills, and all the gazillions of other things that constantly break apart. That is our current reality.
And just think, His return will bring about our return to the perfect state of creation that we have never known before. You will still be you and I will still be me, but we will know for the first time all things new.
Then we will experience the Holy fulfillment of the prayer written and put to music in 1985 by Dan Burr that many of us pray as we follow the way of Jesus:
Make me new, Lord Jesus, make me new, for it seems that in so many ways I’m not enough like You. Take this weary vessel I am in and mold me once again. Take my life, take my spirit, make me new.
No more imperfections, no more aches, no more pain, no more death—only all things new.
Throughout this series of posts, we have remembered once more that Jesus is the better way to live. We read anew the story of God’s arrival on earth in the birth of Jesus His son to climax His reign as King and Ruler of all creation.
Through Jesus’s life he taught us how to live and gave us His Spirit to guide our walk as we learn from him, over our time on earth, the way of love and service.
He died as a once for all time sacrifice for all our sin to allow us to enter the presence of God. He
then arose from death, and returned to Father God to complete the task of creation restoration to its perfect state which includes you and me.
We will rise to meet Jesus Our Messiah when He returns. Then together we will make our eternal home in the presence of God the Father and the Holy Spirit on the renewed earth with a brilliant and perfect heaven.
We will rest assured—we have followed The Better Way, The Way of Jesus.
Stay tuned.
Gary J. Sorrells
A GodReflection on His Return Our Return.
God Reflection 