Chuck Foreman – Teaching Pastor

If God really intends to “restore all things” (Acts 3:19-20) in creation to the goodness and beauty of his original design, if creation will one day be “liberated from its bondage to decay” along with our physical bodies (Romans 8:19-23), if the 2^nd Coming of Christ is not to return to earth and take us back to heaven with him, but to bring heaven down to earth and reign here with us forever, to heal the nations and undo the effects of the curse on creation (I Thessalonians 4:13-18; Revelation 11:15-18; 21:1-5; 22:5), if how we live and how we pray now involves us in this plan to restore everything and establish God’s will and his kingdom on earth now (Matthew 6:10) —if this is actually what God has up his sleeve for us and our world, then how should this affect our attitude toward our life now on earth? 

Well, for me it means that whatever good thing I do, anything that makes a difference here, anything that makes this world a better place: pursuing justice for the oppressed, feeding the hungry, caring for the stranger, the sick, the imprisoned, the naked, the thirsty, the poor, the blind and lame, restoring structure and beauty (Isaiah 58:6-12; Luke 4:16-21; Matthew 25:34-40; Ephesians 2:10; Titus 2:11-14), all of this makes me a partner to what Jesus came to do. When we live this way, we are in on the restoration of all things and in undoing the effects of the curse and the destruction that Satan has brought to God’s once perfect creation. No good we do is lost, it simply moves our world that much closer to the reign of Christ on earth—to Eden restored! I can’t think of any project more worthwhile to be involved in than that! What about you?