God’s Makeover

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is a reality television series that provides home renovations for less fortunate families. Over eight seasons, different teams of volunteers have helped restore or completely rebuild more than 180 homes for people who have suffered tragedies in their lives. How would you like to wake up some morning to hear that you were going to get a new house?

After being interviewed about your family’s needs and preferences, you’d also be given a free one-week vacation while your house was totally renovated at no cost to you. One week later, before your eyes, would be your completely renewed home, with all-new furniture, electronics, and landscaping too. It would be a tearjerker moment, wouldn’t it?

The program receives thousands of applications for families in need. The producers look for truly deserving families who are the type to give back to their communities. Sometimes the family has a father who was critically injured, a child who is extremely ill, or several foster children. Some have lost loved ones in car accidents or have been victims of domestic violence.

The Bible talks about a renovation project that brought tears to the eyes of some and shouts of joy from others. It was the renovation of the temple in Jerusalem after the Babylonian captivity. When the foundations for the temple were laid, the Bible says, “Many of the priests and Levites and heads of the fathers’ houses, old men who had seen the first temple, wept with a loud voice when the foundation of this temple was laid before their eyes. Yet many shouted aloud for joy” (Ezra 3:12). In fact, the shouting was so loud you could not distinguish joy from weeping.

Someday God is going to do an extreme makeover of this Earth. Our home will be completely made new—not modified, not touched up, not just surface changes, but a brand-new creation. It will be just like it was in the beginning. Jesus will someday swing wide the gates of heaven and say, “Welcome home!”

Key Bible Texts

And I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea. (Revelation 21:1 KJV)