21 Days to Finding Eternal Purpose in Your Daily WorkSample

In his prophetic book, Isaiah says we will work forever on the “new earth” where God will establish his eternal kingdom (see Isaiah 65)!

This passage and many others totally upend the modern caricature that heaven is a glorified retirement home where disembodied souls float around doing nothing but relaxing and singing for all eternity. That false vision is a distortion of what theologians like Randy Alcorn call “the intermediate Heaven...where we go when we die...until our bodily resurrection.” In other words, the intermediate or “present” heaven is just a stop along the way to our final destination—the new earth—where God will dwell with his people in his eternal kingdom.

Isaiah says in the kingdom, we will “build houses,” “plant vineyards,” and “not labor in vain.” Revelation 22:3 paints a similar picture, claiming we will “serve” God on the new earth. Of course, service is active. It involves expending energy and getting things done.

What does this mean for our work today? It means we can grieve over frustrating work with hope, knowing there is coming a day when work will be fully redeemed. It means one day our everyday work will be more glorious than the best day’s work we have experienced in this life. It means someday, work will be perfect worship again.

As we’ll see tomorrow, God’s kingdom-building project had already begun, having been launched 2,000 years ago when Jesus came to earth as a carpenter.