You can hurry God's promise a little by spreading goodness and his righteousness today.
SHAUNA: Hi, I’m Shauna on Joni Eareckson Tada: Sharing Hope. Second Peter 3 says, “We are looking forward to God's promise.” That’s the promise of the home of righteousness, a new heaven and a new earth where there will be only goodness, as it says in scripture. Lean in now as Joni explains it.
JONI: Don’t you love those last few words? A home of righteousness where there will be only goodness. That’s what our home of righteousness will feel like, will be like. And just think of all that that word ‘home’ means. In the best sense, home means warmth and acceptance, a place of love and welcome. Home, in the truest sense, should mean a place where we fit like nowhere else. Right now, our souls have no real home on earth. There's so much loneliness and despair, hate and violence. True, every once in a while, such as in our own homes with our own families, we are refreshed by long moments of tranquility where everyone and everything around us is peaceful. Wouldn't it be wonderful if it were always that way in our own homes and those around us? Peace and tranquility in our communities and around the world, wouldn’t that be great? Well, one day it will be so. Goodness will have come home to stay. Like the Bible verse says, the new heaven and the new earth are where “there will only be goodness.”
Ruth Calkin once wrote a poem about that, she said, “O dear God, ‘Where there will be only goodness.’ After centuries of war, greed, and lust. After indulgences shamelessly practiced. After hatred, hostility, jealousy and abuse. Murder and martyrdom, crime and cruelty, curses and rebellion. After whimpering cries from starving children; After tragedy and catastrophe, Loneliness and despair, At last, at long last… ‘There will be only goodness.’ O dear Lord Your promise is Your guarantee. But please, hurry it a little! “And I would say, “Here, here to that!” Oh, my goodness, come quickly, Lord Jesus. Our bruised and battered planet needs you. Our country needs you. Too long have your people strived in a world of crime and cruelty. Personally, I'm just overwhelmed by the desperate plight of so many people around the world living with disabilities, living in neglect and poverty, on the edge of despair.
We long for things to be made right; for there to be only goodness. We long it for our home, and we long for the new heavens and new earth. So let me ask: What can you do to make your household more like “home?” What can you do to make your community a place of goodness? Well, hurry God's promise a little, would you, by spreading goodness, his righteousness today.
SHAUNA: And friend, if you need help doing that, if you’re looking for a little encouragement in this crazy world of so much pain and disappointment, go to joniradio.org. You’ll find more of Joni’s radio programs and all sorts of helpful advice about how we are to live in the time between now and the day to come when there is only goodness.And remember, God has not left this broken, battered world to itself – no, he is redeeming it; he’s rescuing it; he’s preparing it for a day of renovation when, indeed, the new heavens and the new earth will unfold, and we will suddenly be at home. We will at last be in that wonderful place where there is only goodness. So, hurry it on a little and spread his goodness around.
© Joni and Friends