The Restoration Project

Read: Acts 3:17-23

He must remain in heaven until the time for the final restoration of all things. Acts 3:21

IN WORD

God is into restoration. In the Prophets, He restores His people to the land, and they restore broken walls (Isaiah 58:12). Through Jesus, He restores His own image in redeemed image-bearers. In the end, He restores Eden’s qualities, but in a city rather than a garden (Revelation 22:1-5). Even now, Jesus is in heaven waiting for His enemies to be made His footstool (Hebrews 10:13) and anticipating the time “for the final restoration of all things.” Clearly, God is not letting any part of His plan fall through the cracks.

In the meantime—between the two advents of the King, when the ever-increasing Kingdom is being cultivated—we are to be restorers too. If God is into restoration, and if His people are to live in practical union with Him, then we are meant to be active in this restoration. We live in a broken world, but we are never told to let it remain broken. There is nothing about His creation that we are called to write off as a loss.

It’s easier to think otherwise. Some things look like lost causes. Some hearts seem to be so hardened that they could never be open to redemption. Some relationships are so difficult that they appear hopeless. Some aspects of human society look unredeemable. But we are never authorized to make any of those assessments. If God calls us to demonstrate faith, hope, and love, we can never call anything impossible, hopeless, or unlovable. We are investing ourselves in a Kingdom that cannot and will not ever pass away. That should make us irrepressibly optimistic and relentlessly persistent.

IN DEED

How do we become restorers? Think about the “broken walls” in your life. Envision what the Kingdom would look like in your relationships, in your home and community, or in your physical and emotional health or that of the people around you. Then pray, live, work, and relate to others toward that vision. Step into the Kingdom picture in every way you can, gently and winsomely drawing others into it too. When your focus is a restoration of all things, you align yourself with the heart of God.

ADDITIONAL READING: Acts 1:6-8

Wherever the bounds of beauty, truth, and goodness are advanced, there the Kingdom comes.

FREDERICK DONALD COGGAN