Sunday, October 30, 2011

Acts 3 : 21

One of my favourite GRACE verses is Acts 3 : 21.
It addresses both God's purpose and some elements of his timing in achieving that purpose.
Heaven must receive Jesus until the time when everything will be restored as God promised through his holy prophets long ago.
[ GW ]
It was this verse that first got me started on a hunt through the Old Testament to see how far back God started talking about his plan to restore all things.
One of the first clues I bumped into was 2 Samuel 14 : 14.
Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die.
But that is not what God desires; rather, he devises ways so that a banished person does not remain banished from him.
[ NIV ]
We might be banished or disappear from this planet, but will not be banished from God.
He has plans to keep in touch with us.

Another was Psalm 22 : 27 - 29.
All the ends of the world shall remember and turn to the LORD, And all the families of the nations shall worship before You.
For the kingdom is the LORD's, And He rules over the nations.
All the prosperous of the earth shall eat and worship; All those who go down to the dust shall bow before Him, even he who cannot keep himself alive.
[ NKJV]
Both the affluent and the poor, the alive and the dead, will all worship the Lord.

And what about this in Psalm 65 : 2?
You who answer prayer, to you all people will come.
[ NIV ]

And Lamentations 3 :  31 - 32.
For the Lord will not reject us forever.
Though he causes us grief, he then has compassion on us according to the abundance of his loyal kindness.
[ NET ]

And there are stacks more.
So this idea of GRACE - God Reconciles All Creation Eventually - is not a Plan B.
This was part of God's plan right from the beginning.

The more I study this, the more excited and appreciative I become.
Blessings, Barry

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