Mark 10:29-30
Jesus said, “Truly I say to you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or farms, for My sake and for the gospel’s sake, but that he will receive a hundred times as much now in the present age, houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and farms, along with persecutions; and in the age to come, eternal life.  NASU

This is Jesus’s answer to a question put forth by Peter. “We’ve given up everything, what do we get?” It has two parts, the present and the future. Some scholars today confuse the promise as being all future. Lets notice the promise for the present.

If a person has given up his life and exchanged it for the life of Christ he may lose a lot of earthly possessions but he gains them back in a new and unique way. He may lose his physical family but he will gain a large spiritual family. The number of his brothers and sisters will be multiplied a thousand fold. He may lose a house or a farm but he will gain many more in his spiritual family. We should not be surprised when the early church began to share their possessions so that those who had lost, gained. No one considered their earthly possessions theirs to use selfishly. They shared and the promise of Jesus became real. Wherever the gospel spread the willingness to share by those who had with those who lost became the norm.

Now the promise for the future. The age to come. After this life when time ends and eternity begins for the children of God they have a promise. It is not for the dirt of earth nor the possessions of this world. This world is a world of death. It has been since mankind left the garden. It is a cursed place and a land of sin not fit for the saved of God. He says he will destroy it down to the elements. Not remake it but destroy it. What happens to the believers. Jesus says they get eternal life.

By expecting a new earth we show that our heart is hear and not in heaven with God. Listen to the Apostle Paul.

Phil 3:20-21
For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ; who will transform the body of our humble state into conformity with the body of His glory, by the exertion of the power that He has even to subject all things to Himself. NASU

Our citizenship is in heaven where Jesus is. Our citizenship is in heaven where God is. Our citizenship is in heaven where Jesus is coming to take us. Our citizenship is in heaven where Jesus is preparing us a place. We’ll lose our earthly self and be transformed into a glorious (spiritual) body. A glorious body has no need of earth. It doesn’t need air, food, sun or minerals. All it has need of will be in heaven…God.

God, we long for the present age to end and the age to come to arrive. We long to leave the cursed land for the heavenly home where we belong.