I saw a new heaven and a new earth. The first heaven and the first earth disappeared, and the sea vanished. ... I heard a loud voice speaking from the throne: “Now God's home is with people! He will live with them, and they shall be his people. God himself will be with them. [Revelation 21:1,3 GNT]
Revelation is filled with imagery that indicates a desire to make God in our own image. I think that this is normal. Really. Who can understand, back then or now, what it means for God to live among us. When John writes that God's home is with us, he is really saying that our home is with God.
It is a subtle shift of language but an important one. When we each pass from this earthly dimension we will begin to experience one that is so different. Time will not exist. Neither will darkness. We will have no need to sleep. And God will be with each of us in a very different way.
For the believer, this truth is a revelation of hope fulfilled. A dimension of pain and poverty will disappear. It will give way to a dimension of majestic beauty and outrageous love. Words and language do not exist to describe such a place. Yet such a dimension exists in each of our hearts.
Dear Lord. In hard times help me to remember the place that you are preparing for me.
... this devotion is part of a series from the book of Revelation