I am anxious to begin to consider the glorious beings we will be in Heaven, and specifically in our eternal home of the “new heavens and new earth”. However, before I do, I want to follow up my previous post by looking at who we are now, as a new creation in union with Jesus Christ by faith; men and women who by the Holy Spirit have been born again, restored to spiritual life (Ephesians 2:4-7), that we may no longer live our lives for ourselves, but to the praise and glory of the one who created us, loved us and gave His life to redeem us (2 Corinthians 5:14-15) (Galatians 2:20).
This new life and new birth didn’t come from something we did, or even by our seeking it (Romans 3:11-12). How could it? We were spiritually dead in our sin (Ephesians 2:1), uninterested in and unable to reach out to God, considering the things of God to be foolishness, unworthy of our time and attention (1 Corinthians 2:14) (1Corinthians 1:18. But He reached out to you and I (Titus 3:3-7), and created in our soul what did not exist there before, namely spiritual life, resulting in both a desire and ability to know, love and be loved by God. This is what is behind our coming to trust Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord when we did.
New convictions began to unsettle our mind. We became disturbingly aware of our sin against the creator God, ashamed and disgusted by it, dissatisfied with the life we had been living. We wanted to feel clean and more importantly be clean (morally), free from the sin that so easily beset our lives, as well as from sin’s eternal consequences. Thus, we were drawn to His promises of forgiveness, reconciliation and righteousness (2 Corinthians 1:20), the assurance of “no condemnation” (Romans 8:1).
We used to feel God was against us. Now we are convinced that God is always and in every way for us (Romans 8:31-32). Our old natural instinct was to hide from God (Genesis 3:8); our new instinct is to draw near to Him (Hebrews 7:18-19). There’s a new hunger and thirst for God in our soul (Matthew 5:6). We want more of Him in our life and we want Him to have more of us. We have truly been made new, no longer the condemned rebel we were as a result of our natural birth as a descendent of Adam (1 Corinthians 15:22).
In our natural birth we were a spiritual child of the devil, having his nature and character, subject to his will (John 8:44) (1 John 3:10), and thus objects of God’s wrath and judgment (Ephesians 2:2-3). When we were born again we were adopted by God as His own beloved child (Galatians 3:26), loved by God the Father as much as He loves His only begotten Son, Jesus (John 17:22-23). As such, it is not only our heavenly Father’s will that we want to do, but we find great joy, delight and satisfaction in doing it (Psalm 40:8).
Our natural birth knitted our heart and affections to our earthly parents and family. When we were born again, our hearts and affections became knitted first and foremost to our heavenly Father and His forever family – other Christians (1 John 4:20-21) (Mark 3:31-35).
In our natural birth. we had an essential and natural need for the milk of our mother’s breast so that we would grow physically. In our new birth, we find we have an essential and supernatural need and love for the milk of God’s word that we may grow spiritually (1 Peter 2:1-3) (Psalm 119:97).
In our natural birth, we were born with an unyielding desire for the temporal and fleeting pleasures of this world (1 John 2:15-17) (Hebrews 11:24-26). When we were born again, we began to long for the ever increasing, ever diverse and all satisfying pleasures of God that we will one day enjoy with Him forever (Psalm 16:11) (2 Corinthians 4:18).
As a natural man or woman, we would live our lives seeking to please ourselves. Upon being born again we have as our priority pleasing, honoring and glorifying God (2 Corinthians 5:9) (2 Corinthians 5:15) (1 Corinthians 10:31)..
As a natural man or woman, we seek praise and honor from those around us (John 12:43). Upon being born again, we long for the praise and honor that comes from God, most importantly the praise and honor that comes at the time of our final judgement (Matthew 25:23) (Romans 2:5-11).
As men and women born of Adam, we live our lives in this world constricted by our fear of physical death, and we thus do everything we can to delay or avoid it (Hebrews 2:14-15). When we are born again, we rejoice in the love of God (1 John 4:18), assured that our names are written in Heaven (Luke 10:20), looking forward to the day when our work in this sin cursed world is finished and we can be with our Lord (Philippians 1:21-23). Even more so, we look forward to His second coming when we will be fully restored to the glorious life with God for which we were created (2 Timothy 4:8).
As a natural man or woman, knowing, loving and being loved by another man or woman was the focus of our relational life. When we were born again, knowing, loving and being loved by God became all that ultimately mattered (Psalm 73:25-26) (Psalm 27:4) .
This is because, when we were born again we saw by faith a beauty, an excellence in Jesus Christ that we did not see before (2 Corinthians 4:3-6), wherein He now becomes the desire of our heart and the delight of our soul, the object of our deepest love and the source of our greatest joy.
Christian theologian and author, John Piper, writes in one of his sermons, “Our soul is not born again unless or until it is excited by the knowledge and person of God (in Christ), where He is loved, desired for His own sake, where there is a deep and spontaneous love and affection to God as the most excellent of all beings-the most excellent of all relationships-the most excellent of all riches-the most excellent of all pleasures …. wherein we lose our appetites for lesser pleasures and lesser delights.
Thus, it is the beauty and excellence of Jesus Christ, God the Son, the “last Adam”, that we as born again men and women desire, long for and strive to be conformed to as we live out the remainder of our life in this world (2 Corinthians 3:18); a longing and desire that will be fulfilled when we see Jesus either at our death, or at His second coming (1 Corinthians 15:45-49) (1 John 3:1-3).
All glory be to Him both now and forever, Amen.
Grace and Peace ×
Encouraging Truth