This is a revolutionary book about our future based on the simple idea that heaven is not our eternal home-the New Earth is. Jesus described the next chapter of our story as "the renewal of all things," (Matthew 19:28). Meaning, literally, the renewal of the earth we love in all its beauty, the renewal of our own being, and all those things which make for a rich life-music, art, food, laughter, all that we hold dear-shall be renewed "when the world is made new"(Matthew 19:28 NLT).
How you envision your future impacts your current experience more than anything else. Children starting the long school year feel very differently about waking each morning than those who know summer vacation is just a few days away. The woman recently served divorce papers feels very differently about her life than the woman who wakes the day before her wedding. If you know that God was going to restore your life and everything you love any day, if you believed a great and glorious goodness was coming to you-not in a vague heaven but right here on this earth-you would have a hope to see you through anything, an anchor for your soul, "an unbreakable spiritual lifeline, reaching past all appearances right to the very presence of God" (Hebrews 6:19 The Message).
Most Christians (most people for that matter) do not really look forward to their future because their views of heaven are vague, religious, and appallingly boring. Hope begins to surge when we understand that for the believer nothing is lost. Heaven is not a life in the clouds; it is not unending worship singing. Rather, the life we long for, the paradise Adam and Eve knew, is precisely the life that is coming to us. And coming soon.