The New Earth

I really appreciated Randy Alcorn's book, Heaven, as I was preparing my sermons on the Present Heaven and on The New Heaven and New Earth. His content and illustrations were excellent. I especially liked his stuff about "It doesn't get any better than this...." near the end of the book, which I paraphrased for my sermon last week:

Have you ever been on a wonderful vacation or sat around a campfire with friends or around a Christmas Dinner with your family and leaned back and said with total satisfaction those enchanting words, “It doesn’t get any better than this.” I’m sure you have, though I know for some of you it may have been years ago and things are so rough right now you can hardly remember. But you have been there, right? Even if just for a moment you have thought, “It couldn’t get any better than this.” Well, that is not true because the most ordinary moment on the New Earth will be greater than the most perfect moments in this life. And just when you are in perfection on the New Earth enjoying some adventure or relaxing with family and friends or part of a worship service or reading a great book or playing a fantastic sport and you sit back and think, “I doesn’t get any better than this” – it will. Everyday will be better than the day before and will keep getting better and better because of our increasing capacity for joy and increasing knowledge of our infinite God. It just makes me want to shout out, “Thank you Lord! I can hardly wait! I can hardly understand why you would welcome me in, but I know you will because Jesus died for my sins! So thank you Lord!”