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This is the one-hundred-forty-fourth lesson in author and pastor Mel Lawrenz’ How to Live the Bible series. If you know someone or a group who would like to follow along on this journey through Scripture, they can get more info and sign up to receive these essays via email here.

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away…And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Revelation 21:1, 3-4

A HOME BEYOND IMAGINATION

Mel Lawrenz is Teaching Pastor at Elmbrook Church. His latest books are devotionals for the Easter season, Knowing Him, and a version for children, Knowing Him for Kids https://amzn.to/2MCDgIC

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He came back home with amazing stories of a faraway land that his fellow residents of Venice found impossible to believe. A land in the East with cities that dwarfed the great cities of Europe, a culture that had paper currency, a mysterious exploding powder, and a king whose palace dwarfed the great castles of Europe, with a dining hall that could seat 6,000 people eating on plates made of gold. Marco Polo lived for 17 years in China, having been accepted into the court of the most powerful man on earth, Kublai Khan, in the year 1266. To his dying day, Marco Polo was rejected by skeptics who found his tale too far-fetched.

Some find it hard to believe there’s a future state of being called “a new heaven and a new earth.” A new creation. A restoration of the way things ought to be. A reversal of sin and war, earthquakes and hurricanes, disease and temptation. A condition in which there is no death, no pain, no tears.

Yet this is exactly what you’d expect God the Almighty to do. He wants us to be home with him.

Our place, in his plan, is to come home. Finally, truly, irrevocably—home.

This call of God in Revelation, this promise of “a new heaven and a new earth,” has one all-important characteristic: “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them.” In Genesis, Adam and Eve fled the home of the garden and entered the hard life of the field. Ever since, people have lived away from home: in Egypt, in Babylonia, under Roman occupation. In sin, transgression, rebellion, conflict, divorce, unemployment, illness, fear.

All that will be swept away, and we will dwell with God in a new condition beyond imagining.

PONDER

Dwelling with God begins now. What are some ways your life can be different this year if you fully believe that you belong to God every hour of every day?
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[If you believe this series will be helpful, this is the perfect time to forward this to a friend, a group, or a congregation, and tell them they too may sign up for the weekly emails here]

Mel Lawrenz (@MelLawrenz) trains an international network of Christian leaders, ministry pioneers, and thought-leaders. He served as senior pastor of Elmbrook Church in Brookfield, Wisconsin, for ten years and now serves as Elmbrook’s teaching pastor. He has a PhD in the history of Christian thought and is on the adjunct faculty of Trinity International University. Mel’s many books include Spiritual Leadership Today: Having Deep Influence in Every Walk of Life (Zondervan, 2016). See more of Mel’s writing at WordWay.

The post How to Live the Bible — A Home Beyond Imagination appeared first on Bible Gateway Blog.