Resurrection to Restoration

Questions for Reflection

Read Revelation 21: 1-7

• Take some time to describe the “new heaven and new earth.” What is it like? What aspects of John’s vision do you long for in this season and why?

• John draws on Isaiah 65:17-25 when he envisions “a new heaven and a new earth.” Read this passage from Isaiah. What characterizes the new heavens and the new earth according to Isaiah? What part of Isaiah’s vision do you long for in this season?

• In verse 3 the voice from the throne says that God’s dwelling place is among the people(s). In the Greek, this word is plural, denoting that God is gathering together folks from all people groups in the new heaven and new earth. God longs to dwell among the nations, to draw every tribe and language and people to himself (Rev 7:9). How should that reality shape our perspective in this season?

• This new heaven and new earth will be shared by those who are “thirsty.” (For a deeper dive into being “thirsty” read Isaiah 55:1-3, Psalm 42:1-4, or John 4:4-14.) What does it mean to thirst for water that comes “from the spring of the water of life”?

• In verse 5 we read that “He who was seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’” What needs to be made new in your life right now? What “new things” is God doing around you, and how can you join Him? 

• In verse 6 God says “I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End.” Take a moment to compare and contrast these words with Christ’s words from the cross in John 19:30. How do these two statements of finality fit together? How do they give us hope?