The Next Chapter

The next chapter of our story is precisely that — the chapter that follows all the chapters before and fits them perfectly. God is still telling a story; the next chapter is not disconnected from the rest. (I know it feels totally disconnected, but it is not.) If we will look at our future in light of the story God has been telling, it will banish the fog like a strong summer sun.

In the next chapter, our powerful and creative Father re-creates us and the earth. He then tells us to do exactly what he told Adam and Eve to do: reign. “You have made them to be a kingdom and priests to serve our God, and they will reign on the earth” (Revelation 5:10). Do you follow the story? Do you see the exciting connection? Glorious men and women are once again given a glorious world in order to do the very things it is in our nature to do. Only this time around with far greater powers, magnificent even. We have within us a latent potency, talents and gifts unrealized, soon to be made new; the renewed earth will be even more responsive to our leadership than the first time around. So Dallas Willard invites us to use our God-given imagination:

We should think of our destiny as being absorbed in a tremendously creative team effort, with unimaginably splendid leadership, on an inconceivably vast plane of activity, with ever more comprehensive cycles of productivity and enjoyment. This is the “eye hath not seen, neither ear heard” that lies before us in the prophetic vision (Isa. 64:4).

What will you do in the coming kingdom?

The simple, stunning answer is, you will do everything you were born to do.

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