This Aching Earth

A 5-DAY DEVOTIONAL ON THE RESTORATION OF ALL THINGS

“This [was] good,” but it will get better when Jesus returns and fixes everything we’ve broken. This study plan surveys our loss of dominion and the strategy of our King to keep His promise to restore all things.

Day 1: The Genesis

Verses: Genesis 1:1-2:17; John 8:12; Ephesians 3:8-12; 1 Peter 1:19-21

When the Word first broke the void and created everything out of nothing, the Triune God already had plans in mind. Nothing has deviated from His plan; the goodness of the beginning and the glory of Eden’s earliest days were but a glimpse of the goodness and glory to come. Before the Word gave light permission to shine, the Light of the World had already determined His steps to Golgotha. Jesus is the Lamb slain “before the foundations of the earth,” and this world and this age, for all our brokenness and betrayal of everything holy, are ordained to display something about His nature unique to intervening salvation. We are His, and His to save. Yes, “it was good” before sin stained the earth. The testimony of Scripture is this: He has something even better in store.

Jesus, You are the Word and You are the Truth. I believe Your goodness, and I trust in Your sovereignty. Thank You for the goodness You’ve made—this world, and even my own life, body, and mind. Give me eyes to see what You are doing.

Day 2: The Darkness

Verses: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7; John 12:31; 14:6; 15:1-8; Romans 3:9-23; Galatians 1:4; Colossians 1:13; James 1:17

When our earliest parents trespassed the command of the LORD at the dawn of mankind, we exposed the Achilles’ heel of humanity in this age: our lust for power without proximity to the Sovereign. Implicit within disobedience is a distrust in His goodness, and it is these libels against His character that cause us to pursue knowledge without Truth and life apart from the Vine. As Tozer put it, “the mighty disaster theologians call ‘the Fall’” thrust us into a permeating ignorance, cloaking us in the darkness of accusation against the High and Lofty One. The dominion given to the first man and woman was handed off to the devil in a dirty power grab that left the good world burdened under the curse of our treason. It would take the Father of Lights to liberate us.

Father, thank You that You are light and truth and fundamentally good. I can trust You. Thank You for intervening against the darkness of my sin and liberating me from the power of the prince of this age. 

Day 3: The Second Adam

Verses: Genesis 3:15; 2 Samuel 7:12-17; Psalm 110; Proverbs 8:22-31; John 1:1-18; 3:16; Romans 5:12-21; Colossians 1:15-20; 1 John 3:8; Revelation 1:5

When the Word broke the darkness a second time, it wasn’t as spoken sound as is was in Genesis 1, but as the breathing witness of the living Word (as in John 1). He who formed the world entered time and space as a man formed by blood and earth in the image of His Image. It is important to understand this age is simply the stage set to reveal the glory of the merciful God who resurrects; Jesus’ incarnate intervention to bring living light into our dark world wasn’t His Plan B because He needed to fix what we broke in Eden. He’s always intended to reveal His restorative hand, His skillful craftsmanship to redeem the worst failure in the cosmos. By His birth as God’s only begotten Son and His resurrection as the firstborn from the dead, He achieved the eternal adoption of every son and daughter who comes to regenerate faith in Him.

He is David’s Son, destined for the dominion Adam lost and the throne David was granted through covenantal election and promise. The inauguration of His Kingdom will crush the head of the serpent, a victory promised in the ashes of Eden’s arson so long ago.

Jesus, You are the answer to our depravity. You are the fullest expression of God, and by humbly taking on our form, You are the fullest expression of Man. You deserve the dominion granted in the Garden. Strengthen me to wait and work for Your appearing.

Day 4: The Waiting

Verses: Romans 8:18-25; John 14:18; 19:30; 1 Corinthians 15:51-57; Ephesians 2:4-7; Colossians 1:9-14; 1 John 3:1-3; Revelation 11:15-19

We live in the “until”—between the “In the beginning,” after the “It is finished!” and before the seventh trumpet sounding the Lord’s return. It is easy to become discouraged. We do not know a world without sin, death, and decay—but the world does. To borrow words from Beth Moore, “this aching earth remembers Eden.” The Maker of Heaven and Earth did not leave us to our exile, and He will not leave our dominion to rot in our curse. He will bring to pass everything He’s promised, and the Gospel of restoration will bridge this age into the next with a new heaven and new earth, filled with sinless saints bearing testimony to His goodness towards us in Jesus for all the ages to come.

He is worth that testimony.

Jesus, I trust You to keep Your Word. You said You will not leave us orphans, but will return to us. Give me grace to wait for you, and walk worthy of what You’ve called me to until You come.  

Day 5: The Restoration

Verses: Psalm 2; Acts 1:6-7; 3:21; Isaiah 9:6-7; 11:1-10; 51:3; Psalm 72; Revelation 21:1-4

“Heaven must receive Him until,” said Peter in his first public sermon. Until He comes to keep every promise He has made, until He comes to restore all things. When He comes, death dies its last. The triumph secured in the tomb will be finally and fully vindicated; the same power that pulled Jesus from the grave will pull every saint out of their own. Sickness will fade into the dust of memory. He will end all war with such totality that we will melt our guns into plows and get to work to restore the earth. We’ll strip ambulances for scrap metal and begin to rebuild. No one will wonder if God is real or what His Name is—we will all know Jesus is the King reigning in Jerusalem. It will be our privilege to serve Him in the flesh; our service to Him now is directly related to what we’re assigned to steward then. Let’s serve Him well.

Jesus, You are the hope of the earth and I cannot wait to see how You restore all things. Thank You that You are committed to redeeming every pain I’ve felt and every tear I’ve cried. Thank You that You have a plan and means to fully defeat death, and that You will pull me out of the grave one day. This is not the end of the story. Thank You for writing a better story than what my sins wrote for me, for the world. You are so kind.