REVELATION 21:1-4 – Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”
THEME OF THE DAY. IT WILL BE OVER – SOON. Every Christian feels it. Every believer yearns for its reality. Every child of God rarely lets a day pass, if any, of pondering it. This “it” is really not an “it”, but a Person and a Place. “It” is seeing the Lord Jesus and being in heaven. Actually, this feeling, this yearning, and this pondering is a sign of a good healthy spiritual condition. The more a Christian grows in the likeness of Christ, the deeper the longing to be with Christ occurs. And the more a Christian sees their sin, their weaknesses, their failings, and how much they fall short of the glory of God, the more intense does this desire to be delivered from this world of sin and their own wretchedness occur. The Apostle Paul captures this intensity well in his letter to the Romans – So I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin (Romans 7:21-25).
But even though we know this truth, the battle against sin, Satan, and self gets very difficult and we may easily lose heart. Who has not felt that the spiritual wars we fight within and without are never going to end? Who has not been defeated by our spiritual foes and sigh with the words, “When will this stop? When will deliverance finally come?” To help us to overcome the ease of discouragement over spiritual battles lost and that seem to never end, today’s scripture is a great place to go often.
The Apostle John is winding down his book of the Revelation. Though his book is ending, it is pointing us to just the beginning. He takes us into the realm of hope realized; of the literal truth of what lies ahead for the sheep of the Lord’s pasture. Let this picture of certainty lift up our drooping hearts when we see that all this will be over and over soon. We will be arriving to the place where – God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. And what God promises, God fulfills . . . always!.
PRAYER: “Father, I thank You for the hope of heaven and the freedom from the ravages and presence of sin.”
QUOTE: “Keep your eyes on the goal, the prize, the place where sin is no more and the shining face of Jesus captives all people and things.”