Revelation 21:3-5
And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he will dwell with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, and be their God.  And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.  And he that sat upon the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. And he said unto me, Write: for these words are true and faithful.

Right now all we have is the old.  It decays.  It dies.  It is full of sorrow and hurt.  It makes us weary.  It makes us sad.  It is marked by struggle, clouded by darkness, and tainted by loss.  But someday that will end.  Those things that make our time on this Earth so difficult and even unbearable at times will go away.  Those things attached to this cursed Earth and all that arises because of sin will finally be done away with completely.

Sin has done its work, but God can make it new.  And isn’t that the theme over and over—that God doesn’t just rebuild, but He makes something completely new?  Instead of constantly bandaging up and trying to repair the old again and again, He just prepares a brand-new place, untainted and unbroken, where we can dwell with Him forever.  He gives us His Son so we can be made new and have a new life that is separate and distinct from the old.

It is not just heaven and Earth that are made new, but all things.  And what we long for here and only see as a shadow will be our full reality as we dwell with God unveiled, with nothing in between, no sinful flesh to hinder our relationship with Him or with anyone else.  Nothing left to corrupt and damage that life that He creates anew in us.  Finally everything will be how God always intended it to be.  There will be nothing untouched by newness.

So can’t the mere thought of that give us some encouragement even in those hard times?  Doesn’t an understanding of that just draw our hearts closer to God even now as we anticipate how wonderful it will be to dwell in a sinless place with our holy God and be totally unaffected by sin?  It’s hard to imagine such a thing, tainted and limited as we are now.  But God gives us these glimpses behind the curtain that whet our appetite for our future eternity to come.  May we look forward to that day when God will finally be with us unhindered, when He will make everything right and take away all that hurts us, and we can worship Him freely forever and ever.