December 30/31, 2010: Revelation 20-22

“Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

He who was seated on the throne said, “I am making everything new!” Then he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” He said to me: “It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To the thirsty I will give water without cost from the spring of the water of life.  Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. But the cowardly, the unbelieving, the vile, the murderers, the sexually immoral, those who practice magic arts, the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death.” (Revelation 21:1-8)

The Holy City– New Jerusalem– sounds like quite a place.  Paradise, actually.  After the final judgment, the scriptures above describes the place where those whose names are in the book of Life will forever live.  A place where we will get to dwell with God, a place absent of any sadness, death, or mourning.  But a place with streets made of gold, with the walls adorned with the most precious of jewels.  A place of peace, joy, love, and celebration.

But whether we ever get there depends on how we live now.  We almost have a responsibility to ourselves to live our lives in a manner that is holy, pure, and righteous now so that we can enter into the Holy City after the final judgment.  If we do not, then as the verses describe, we will be consigned to a lake of burning sulfur– the lake of fire.

Throughout the Bible, there are countless passages that speak of living holy lives, repenting of sins, having faith, being humble, showing love, etc.  And the thing that is most amazing about it is that all of those words of wisdom and guidance were created as a guide for us– so that when we follow those things, we can enter into paradise with God.  Yes, when we sin we grieve the Lord– but to sound a bit selfish for a moment– we not only grieve God, but we are just hurting ourselves.

The Bible was not written for God’s benefit– it was written for ours.  God does not need to learn how to be wise or loving.  He is all those things.  They were simply written down and recorded so that we can have a manual to follow– almost like a map where we are trying to find our way to the final destination– the final destination being Heaven.

As we end 2010 and start 2011, I pray that we would learn to follow the map (that is the Bible) more closely– to step closer to our final destination, as opposed to a step back, and that we will be able to experience God’s goodness and greatness on a more personal and powerful level.

December 29, 2010: Revelation 17-19

“I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war.  His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself.  He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God.  The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean.  Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. “He will rule them with an iron scepter.”  He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty.  On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written: KING OF KINGS AND LORD OF LORDS.

And I saw an angel standing in the sun, who cried in a loud voice to all the birds flying in midair, “Come, gather together for the great supper of God, so that you may eat the flesh of kings, generals, and the mighty, of horses and their riders, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, great and small.”  Then I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to wage war against the rider on the horse and his army. But the beast was captured, and with it the false prophet who had performed the signs on its behalf. With these signs he had deluded those who had received the mark of the beast and worshiped its image. The two of them were thrown alive into the fiery lake of burning sulfur. The rest were killed with the sword coming out of the mouth of the rider on the horse, and all the birds gorged themselves on their flesh.” (Revelation 19:11-21)

The passage describes the final ‘battle’ if you can call it that between Heaven and Hell.  The reason I hesitate in calling it a battle is because the end is such the total defeat, and the strength on either side is so uneven that it seems a little inappropriate to call it a battle.  However, in this final showdown, John describes the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and the heavenly armies as they ultimately destroy the beast, the false prophet, and all those they had successfully deluded (19:19-21).

Living as we do now, this sort of epic victory seems too distant and unrelated to us when we think of our present circumstances– maybe it has to do with family, finances, relationships, health, school/work, etc.  It seems somewhat irrelevant to think about some battle between good and evil when it feels like a battle at times to just get through our daily schedule.  However, we mustn’t forget that this world and all that we go through in this world are temporary, these trials that we go through are not what defines us for eternity– nor will they last for eternity.

No matter what is currently before us, let us remember that the Lord will ultimately be victorious in a landslide victory that will make us feel almost embarrassed for the enemy– such a crushing loss that we wonder how we could have feared it or even thought they had an inkling of a chance of victory.  And moreover, this victorious Lord is on our side, and is able to provide us with the strength and courage we need to come out of our days, weeks, and years victorious in His name.  Praise the Lord!

December 28, 2010: Revelation 14-16

“The fifth angel poured out his bowl on the throne of the beast, and its kingdom was plunged into darkness. People gnawed their tongues in agony and cursed the God of heaven because of their pains and their sores, but they refused to repent of what they had done.” (Revelation 16:10-11)

As I thought about this, I began to think about what it takes for people to believe in God.  Some people say they will if their prayers are answered– but we all know plenty of people on whom prayers have been answered and they still refuse to believe.  Some say they will believe if they can witness a miracle of some sort– but when it occurs, they consider it mere coincidence and lacking of sufficient evidence to result in belief.  And here, it says that despite all of the unimaginably painful and violent events going on, it was not enough to lead the people to repentance.

The descriptions of the plagues that are to come are gruesome, violent, and horrid to even think about.  From the death of large populations by fire, by sword, by earthquakes, by lack of water, etc. it is awful to think that it is even possible.  And yet, the Bible tells us that despite all of that, the world refused to repent (16:11).

Two things came to mind as I thought about this.  First, the fact that people around us don’t believe is not something that should make us doubt in our faith.  Many people around us may not believe no matter what happens– but their stubborn refusal should not be a reason as to why we should abandon our faith and ultimately result in a loss of our salvation.  If we let it, then it is only to our detriment.  Second, it shows us exactly how hard we need to pray and work to spread the gospel.  We mustn’t give up because our first attempt results in failure– but we should keep going– because we know how hard it is for people to believe in God.

December 26/27, 2010: Revelation 10-13

“The second beast was given power to give breath to the image of the first beast, so that the image could speak and cause all who refused to worship the image to be killed.  It also forced all people, great and small, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hands or on their foreheads, so that they could not buy or sell unless they had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of its name.  This calls for wisdom. Let the person who has insight calculate the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man.  That number is 666.” (Revelation 13:15-18)

As John describes the trials and tribulations he sees unfolding on earth in the last days, one of the things he observed was the requirement that all people, with no exception, were to receive the mark of the beast on either their right hands or their foreheads.  It is said that without it they will be unable to buy or sell anything.

I’ve recently been hearing a lot about what this particular ‘mark’ may be.  But a very realistic possibility seems that it may be a small chip that will be implanted in us.  And truth be told, there are so many obvious reasons why people would think it is great.  For example, if we can buy or sell based on the chip inside, that means issues such as identity theft will no longer be a problem, we won’t have to carry credit cards or cash, or worry about pin numbers and passwords any more.  On the surface, it seems like life will be more convenient, if not safer by the existence of such a chip.

I am not saying it is a chip because I don’t know– with technology changing so rampantly nowadays, who knows what will be available in just a year.  However, we must be on alert and be aware, though, for the mark of the beast.  The verse says that regarding the mark of the beast, it calls for wisdom.  It means that the mark of the beast will not be advertised as that– it won’t be sold with a cautionary warning on the side that it is the mark of the beast and that it is 666.  Most likely, it will be marketed as something convenient, essential, and beneficial– thus, we need wisdom and discernment so as to be able to identify it for what it is so that we can be sure to stay away from it.

The further I read into Revelation, the more I am realizing the need not just for perseverance in times of trial, or patience, but wisdom.  To be in tune with the Lord so as to know what is going on around us so that we will not fall into the trap that may be laid before us.  And fortunately for us, we have not only the Bible with us which has provided for us a guide foretelling what is to come, but also the Holy Spirit who leads us at present so that we may be safe and covered in Jesus.

December 25, 2010: Revelation 7-9

“Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all God’s people, on the golden altar in front of the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand.” (Revelation 8:3-4)

Prayer is a vital part of our spiritual health and growth.  When we don’t pray, it is as though we are choosing not to breathe.  It is that important and that necessary.  Further, one incentive for prayer is the knowledge that our prayers are heard by God.  The imagery from the verses above certainly show this.  If you’ve ever burned incense before, you will probably know that when it burns, the entire room fills with that aroma as it burns.  The idea that our prayers rise like incense before God– where the aroma from our prayers fill his nostrils is quite cool.

I have so much respect for many of the people I have known throughout my life who are what I call “prayer warriors.”  The people who pray for hours every day, who frequently pray all night, and have dedicated their lives to prayer.  But sometimes, I think I tend to give myself an excuse to not pray by saying that I can’t pray like those prayer warriors, so why bother.  However, I have been rebuked and corrected about this so many times in my life– to never ever give into the thought that the only good prayers are long prayers, and thus if I don’t plan to pray for long, or if I can’t pray for long, it may not be worth it to pray at all because it may not be effective.  Those thoughts are from the enemy, and they prevent our spirits from doing what it needs to survive.

Whether it is for just a few minutes or all through the night, our prayers go before God as incense.  I know I need to work harder at this, but I pray that we all would make conscious efforts every day to pray to the Lord, for He really is listening to every one of our prayers, and seeks to hear from us.

December 17, 2010: 2 Peter 1-3

“The first living creature was like a lion, the second was like an ox, the third had a face like a man, the fourth was like a flying eagle. Each of the four living creatures had six wings and was covered with eyes all around, even under its wings. Day and night they never stop saying:

“‘Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty,’ who was, and is, and is to come.”

Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor and thanks to him who sits on the throne and who lives for ever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before him who sits on the throne and worship him who lives for ever and ever. They lay their crowns before the throne and say:

“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”” (Revelation 4:7-11)

I will be the first to admit… that I really struggle in trying to understand the book of Revelations. I have read it numerous times, I have heard sermons on it, and while I get the overall theme, it is very difficult for me to grasp because the imagery that is described is unlike anything on this earth. But even with my limited understanding, one thing that stuck out to me in these chapters was the worthiness of the Lord to receive our worship.

Repeatedly, there are descriptions of the creatures and angels and elders falling in worship, unable to stop describing how worthy He is, how great and how holy He is. There are these great creatures and angels who are falling all over themselves in heaven because they are just so in awe of God’s holiness, but when I thought about how different it is on earth, I almost felt a slight chill. There are churches all over that are cold, ceremonial, and where God is not viewed as though He is worthy of our worship, honor, and life, but more as He is lucky that we are sacrificing our time to come to church, or that He owes us a favor now that we have done something He wants us to do.

God doesn’t owe us anything, nor is He lucky when we deem to recognize Him for a few hours. As Revelations repeatedly describes, He is worthy of everything we have and more. Our best could never be good enough for God, in fact, nothing really is, because He is God. However, that doesn’t mean that we should stop trying– He deserves at least our best because He is worthy– the one who was and is and is to come– He is worthy.

December 23, 2010: Revelation 1-3

The first three chapters of Revelations are primarily John’s letters to seven churches, written at God’s command.  Though all located somewhat close to each other in distance, they were different—and the message the Lord had for them was also unique to each of them.

-       To Ephesus, they had good deeds, but they had forgotten their first love. (2:1-7)
-       To Smyrna, they were experiencing suffering and poverty, and the Lord sought to encourage them to keep going. (2:8-11)
-       To Pergamum, they were living in a very secular place, and as a result, they had become more relaxed to sin, allowing sin to be tolerated. (2:12-17)
-       To Thyatira, they were growing in their faith and serving God’s kingdom—but they tolerated the sin of sexual immorality within their church. (2:18-29)
-       To Sardis, they looked to be ‘awake’ on the outside, but in fact, they were quite dead—thus the message for them is to WAKE UP! (3:1-6)
-       To Philadelphia, they had remained true and patient, and thus the Lord promises them open doors and vindication in the times to come (3:7-13)
-       To Laodicea, they are simply complacent—they were wealthy and comfortable, and didn’t really care either way about the Lord—they were neither hot or cold, but simply lukewarm. (3:14-22)

As I read these chapters, I thought of how these 7 churches are like a spectrum—representing Christians from one end (cold and dead) to the other (growing and full of promise).  Just about any Christian could probably fit into one (or likely more than one) of the 7 categories the 7 churches represented.  Thus, if these letters were not directed to a church, but rather to one of us, which letter would be the most fitting for us to receive?

Are we like Ephesus where we have focused so much on doing God’s “work” that we have forgotten the great and merciful love of God?  Or Smyrna, where we just need some encouragement—we are going through some incredibly tough battles and have remained holy, but things look bleak and the only one we can turn to is God?  Or, are like Pergamum or Thyatira where we are Christians, but have tolerated sin around us?  Or Philadelphia who is faithful, growing, and open doors are ahead?  Or Laodicea where because of our comforts and riches, God is not a priority in our lives because we feel self-sufficient without Him?

Each of the letters point out not just issues to work out, but also encouragements and commands on what they need to do get back on track.  No matter where we fall in the “spectrum” of the seven churches, the thing I felt was that God reached out to them—He wanted to tell those who are straying to turn around, to warn those who are falling asleep to wake up, and to encourage those who have remained righteous to keep going.  God’s eyes are on all of us, and no matter what we are going through, He wants the best for us, and has the best solution to get us back on track or help us to remain on track.

December 22, 2010: Jude

“Dear friends, although I was very eager to write to you about the salvation we share, I felt I had to write and urge you to contend for the faith that was once for all entrusted to the saints.  For certain men whose condemnation was written about long ago have secretly slipped in among you.  They are godless men, who change the grace of our God into a license for immorality and deny Jesus Christ our only Sovereign and Lord.  Though you already know all this, I want to remind you that the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt but later destroyed those who did not believe.” (Jude 3-5).

The book of Jude, once again an entire book that is but 1 chapter, is a letter to “those who have been called, who are loved by God the Father and kept by Jesus Christ” (v1)—in other words, it is a letter meant for everyone.

Here, Jude writes to correct those who have become confused by the false teachings they have heard.  One of them being that since they were saved through grace, it thus granted them the right to sin since their sins were no longer held against them (v3-4).

However, Jude writes in verse 5 that should give all of us a wake up call: “the Lord delivered his people out of Egypt, but later destroyed those who did not believe.”  If you parallel this idea to us, then while we may have been saved when we received Jesus Christ and confessed our sins, it does not give us a free pass to commit sins with reckless abandon because just as God did not hesitate to destroy the Israelites who did not believe in the desert, the same will be true for us who do not believe.

As all of us know, there are too many people who identify themselves a “Christian,” however, they are not because they have not fully accepted Christ, given their lives to Christ, or fully understood the concept of forgiveness by grace.  None of us want to live our lives with our guards constantly up, but often times, I feel as though it is necessary.  Our life is not guaranteed to be easy, however when we are in God, we are guaranteed salvation.  Thus as Jude writes, let us persevere in our faith, let us be clear-minded so that we can discern what is true and false so that we may firmly and assuredly walk in the path that is of God.

December 21, 2010: 3 John

“It gave me great joy to have some brothers come and tell about your faithfulness to the truth and how you continue to walk in the truth.  I have no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth.” (3 John 3-4)

In this rather brief letter to Gaius, John shares his joy in hearing that Gaius is doing well, and to share about the good things he heard about Gaius.  When you contrast this with the report about Diotrephes, it is quite the opposite—it is negative, disheartening, and also somewhat troubling.

While the contents of the reports are certainly different, they share at least one similarity—and that is that it was information John heard from others.   Whether we like it or not, people talk.  It’s not necessarily gossip (though it can be), it may just be sharing news, updating one another on what’s been going on, and so forth.  But the point I am trying to make is that people watch each other and talk about it—be it good or bad.  We do not live our lives for one another, but for God.  However, our lives do affect the people around us just as the lives of the people around affect us, our views, and our opinions.  Thus I pray that we live our lives in a way in which others have nothing to report us that will tarnish the Lord’s name or His church, but that we could live in a way that builds each other up, and moreover, builds up the name of the Lord.

December 19/20, 2010: 2 John

“And now, dear lady, I am not writing you a new command but one we have had from the beginning. I ask that we love one another. And this is love: that we walk in obedience to his commands. As you have heard from the beginning, his command is that you walk in love.” (2 John 5-6)

In this very short book comprising of just 1 chapter, John writes yet again on a few different things—to walk in love and to be careful to discern so as not to be led astray.  Throughout the Bible, we see the message emphasizing the importance of love.  Even Jesus stated that the most important command was to LOVE the Lord, and the second was to LOVE our neighbor (Mark 12:29-31).  Paul stated that among faith, hope, and love, the greatest is LOVE (1 Corinthians 13:13).

I am not talking about romantic love, nor what pop culture has portrayed to us as “love” (that is a WHOLE other subject of which I have plenty to say…)—but actual love in the sense that we forgive, we accept one for their faults, we encourage, we support, we give without holding back, we commit and invest in the relationship—in other words, LOVE.  And this is the type of love we are to show everyone around us—not just our family, romantic partner, or our close friends.  But to all around us—and the reason is because this is a command we have received from the Lord, and as John says above, love is “that we walk in obedience to His commands.”

Modern culture has made us to believe that it is entirely inappropriate, unnecessary, and ridiculous to love everyone.  It is mocked as being a “hippie” idea, but the truth could not be further from that.  Genuine love is mocked because it is seen as impossible—that absent a drug that convolutes our thinking, we cannot genuinely love everyone.  And that is true—without help, we cannot love everyone.  However, fortunately for us, we have the Holy Spirit, who gives us the help and strength we need to love others around us, even when (or maybe I should say especially when) it is hard to love them.  Moreover, we have the greatest role model to follow in learning how to love—and that is our God—the God who loved the world so much that He sent His one and only Son who discarded His rightful place as King over all, and came to this world to suffer for the sins of us all, so that through His suffering, we will be saved.