The other day I was thinking through the tragic loss of the fullness of what God created and blessed mankind with in the Garden of Eden.  We live in a broken world.  Indeed, Paradise has been lost.

However, God has not abandoned His blessing to us.  That’s what the Bible is all about.  Paradise Lost is becoming Paradise Restored.  The commencement is found in Genesis, where God tells how everything began and went wrong, and the culmination is found in Revelation, where God tells us how everything ends and will be fixed.  Praise God for His mercy, grace, and faithfulness!

But even better is that God does not just restore Paradise.  He improves Paradise.  It’s like a cosmic Extreme Makeover:  Home Edition.  You know that on that show they never just restore the house back to what it was.  They always make it way cooler than before.  That’s exactly what God’s going to do with the universe!

According to Revelation 21-22, here are some of the things on His makeover to-do list:

1)  The earthly city will be replaced by the heavenly city (Rev 21:9-21).

• By the way, it’ll be a humongous, gorgeous city that’ll be inhabited by all who believed on Jesus from the Garden to the Second Coming.

2)  The temple will be replaced by God Himself (Rev 21:22).

3)  The sun and moon will be replaced by God’s glory (Rev 21:23).

4)  The need for closed gates will be replaced with the joy of open gates (Rev 21:24-26).

5)  The mixture of righteousness and wickedness will be replaced with the presence of righteousness only (Rev 21:27).

6)  The curse will be replaced by blessing (Rev 22:1-3).

7)  The inability to see God will be replaced with the full experience of seeing God face to face (Rev 22:4).

8)  Death and defeat will be replaced with eternal life and victory (Rev 22:5).

On Extreme Makeover:  Home Edition, they always park a big charter bus in front of the finished house they are about to reveal, and then when the time is right, the crowd screams, “Move that bus!”  As the driver moves the bus out of the way, the amazing makeover is revealed, and the crowd goes crazy with excitement.  In that same spirit, we say to our God, “Move that bus!”  I can’t wait to see it all when His to-do list is completed!!