Joni And Friends Daily Devotional 19 June 2024, Wednesday Message
TOPIC: A New Earth
“Behold, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create, for I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy.
I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people; the sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more.
Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days, or an old man who does not live out his years; he who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere youth; he who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed.
They will build houses and dwell in them; they will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.” – Isaiah 65:17-21
I once was talking to a girl in a wheelchair about heaven. I asked her what she’d like to do when she got there. “Uh…I’d like to knit,” she said. I replied, “Then let’s make a date to meet in a cabin, pull up a couple of rocking chairs by the fireplace, and reach for our knitting needles, okay?” My friend in the wheelchair scoffed, “You’re just saying that. Heaven’s not going to have cabins and rocking chairs. That stuff is only on earth.”
Is that so? I believe heaven will have that and more. Heaven is by no means ambiguous. Today’s verse says that God is planning new heavens and a new earth. Did you get that? Heaven has our planet in it. A new earth with earthy things in it. Isaiah even foresees people dwelling in houses, planting vineyards, and eating fruit.
God does not switch dictionaries on us and suddenly redefine what earth is. If there are streets, rivers, trees, and mountains in the new earth, as the Bible says, then why not all the other good things? Why not cabins and rocking chairs?
Take a moment to consider the rock-solid reality of heaven. Muse on the fact that the best pleasures that you enjoy about earth are but inklings and omens of even greater earthy joys to come. Let all the happiness you experience today serve as a signpost to point you to heaven.
PRAY: Lord, help me to dream about heaven today through all that I taste, see, experience, and feel.
Joni Eareckson Tada is an American evangelical Christian author, radio host, artist, and founder of Joni and Friends, an organization “accelerating Christian ministry in the disability community”.