All Things New!!

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, "Look, God's home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever." And the one sitting on the throne said, "Look, I am making everything new!" And then he said to me, "Write this down, for what I tell you is trustworthy and true." - Rev 21:1-5 NLT

Then the angel showed me a river with the water of life, clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. It flowed down the center of the main street. On each side of the river grew a tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, with a fresh crop each month. The leaves were used for medicine to heal the nations. No longer will there be a curse upon anything. For the throne of God and of the Lamb will be there, and his servants will worship him. And they will see his face, and his name will be written on their foreheads. And there will be no night there--no need for lamps or sun--for the Lord God will shine on them. And they will reign forever and ever. - Rev 22:1-5 NLT

What a glorious future we have in Christ!!  As I sit in mourning for the arrival of His beautiful city, I trust in His love and power to make all things new.  All the wickedness, all the evil is to be done away with.  Can you imagine it?  Oh how He loves us, patiently waiting for all to come to the knowledge of His son.  What is your hope in? 

Pursue Love

Today my heart is stirred.  The commandment of God to love one another has been resonating in my spirit for some time now.  It seems so very hard to carry this out.  Not always because I do not possess the desire but I seem to lack opportunity.  How do we begin to truly love one another?  I was reading today in 1 Cor and was struck by verse 14:1 where it says to pursue love and desire spiritual gifts.  To pursue is to literally run after while desire is to burn passionately for and can entail a pursuit.  I got the sense that we must really go after love with all we have but never stop desiring the spiritual gifts, but only as they can aid us in loving.  Basically I think we should focus all our energy upon the love part but at the same time keep our eye open and ready for the gift part.  If we look back to chapter 13 we see plainly that Paul instructed that gifts without love are totally and utterly worthless.  Yet we clamor around for opportunity to exercise gifts instead of exercising love.  We spend hours in devotion and prayer to God many times with the sole intent of seeing His power manifested; healing, deliverance, resurrection, overcoming etc.  The power of God is good, but the love of God is better.  We could say that power will always follow love but love never follows power.  Think about this in the natural, someone who loves will always exert more power than someone who does not.  This is why you do more for your own children than for the children of other people, because you love your own children more.  We must learn how to pursue love!!  Jesus said it is by our love for one another that the world will know we are His disciples.  Let us begin to go out of our way for one another, to seek out and pursue opportunities to love.