Imagine This!

Hi, I'm Arthur Jackson, and I'm happy to be able to share today's Our Daily Bread Devotion with you that I wrote. I titled it Imagine This. During the course of a popular home renovation television program, viewers often hear the host say, Imagine This. Then she unveils what could be when old things are restored and drab walls and floors are painted or stained. In one episode, after the renovation, the homeowner was so overjoyed that along with other expressions of elation, the words, This is beautiful, gushed from her lips three times. One of the stunning Imagine This passages in the Bible is Isaiah 65, 17-25. What a dazzling recreation scene. The future renovation of heaven and earth is in view, and it's not merely cosmetic.

It's deep and real, life-altering and life-preserving. Verse 21 reads, They will build houses and dwell in them. They will plant vineyards and eat their fruit. Verse 25 says violence will be a thing of the past. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain. While the reversals envisioned in Isaiah 65 will be realized in the future, the God who will orchestrate universal restoration is in the business of the life changed now. The Apostle Paul assures us in 2 Corinthians chapter 5, If anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come, the old has gone, the new is here. In need of restoration, has your life been broken by doubt, disobedience and pain?

Life changed through Jesus is real and beautiful and available to those who ask and believe. Today's Our Daily Bread devotional scripture reading is from Isaiah chapter 65 verses 17 through 25. See, I will create new heavens and a new earth. The former things will not be remembered, nor will they come to mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in what I will create. For I will create Jerusalem to be a delight and its people a joy. I will rejoice over Jerusalem and take delight in my people. The sound of weeping and of crying will be heard in it no more. Never again will there be in it an infant who lives but a few days or an old man who does not live out his years. The one who dies at a hundred will be thought a mere child.

The one who fails to reach a hundred will be considered accursed. They will build houses and dwell in them. They will plant vineyards and eat their fruit.

No longer will they build houses and others live in them or plant and others eat. For as the days of a tree, so will be the days of my people. My chosen ones will long enjoy the work of their hands. They will not labor in vain, nor will they bear children doomed to misfortune. For they will be a people blessed by the Lord, they and their descendants with them. Before they call, I will answer. While they are still speaking, I will hear.

The wolf and the lamb will feed together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox, and dust will be the serpent's food. They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, says the Lord. Let's pray. Dear God, thank you for taking us and loving us just as we are. Thank you also for investing in each of us to mold us into the people you created us to be and to make us into images of your Son. It's in Jesus' name we pray. Amen.