"Isaiah, Amos, and many of the prophets wrote about what God wants to bring about in the future--the kingdom of God, the new heaven and new earth, a healed material creation......When John the Baptist sends a messenger from prison who says to Jesus in Matthew 11: 'Are you really the Messiah? Are you the one who is bringing the kingdom of God?' Jesus answers: 'The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor' (Matthew 11:5). That is the kingdom of God--shalom--complete healing of all the relationships in the creation. We will be reconciled to God; to nature; to one another; and to ourselves.
"And to the extent that that future is real to you, it will change everything about how you live in the present."
- Tim Keller, King's Cross: The Story of the World in the Life of Jesus, (Dutton, 2011), p. 221-222.
Only God the Son can redeem the world, and only God can bring us into fellowship with Him. Any other pseudo-Jesus is an anti-Christ (I John 2:22). Jesus is the "I AM," YHWH in the Old Testament (Exodus 3: 13-15 and John 8:58).
The future can be hopeful if we place our hope in Jesus. Putting our hope in anything else is only a phantom wish. Such idols will only disappoint us. This is something I need to remind myself over and over.
