Apr 23, 2018

A daily devotional walking through God's word together using The Bible Reading Plan at http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.html. Our website http://alittlewalkwithgod.com

Bible Reading Plan - www.Bible-Reading.com; The Story, Chapter 31; You Version Bible app Engaging God's Story Reading Plan Days 204 through 210

Who doesn’t like vacations, right? Maybe your favorite place is sitting in a boat drowning worms to catch the biggest wide-mouth bass in the lake. Maybe you like to stand knee deep in that cold mountain stream with your favorite fly fishing gear. Maybe you just like to lay on the beach and listen to the waves crash against the sand and enjoy the warmth of the sun on your skin. Maybe you like to get to the mountains when the snow settles on the peaks and test your skills on those thin strips of fiberglass under your feet as you speed down the slopes between the trees. Perhaps your favorite vacation is just getting away from the telephone and email and curling up with a good book knowing you don’t have to face the boss or the constant stream of customers for the next few days.

Whatever your favorite vacation, most of them are for the same reasons. We want to get away from the hustle and bustle of everyday life and live for just a little while in something of a paradise. We ponder what Eden must have been like and our mind and body push away from this polluted, entangled world and we experience that beautiful, peaceful, stress free time away from the norm of everyday existence we call a vacation.

The problem for us, vacation ends and we come back to that same old life. Bills to pay. Co-workers and customers we would like to avoid. The same health issues we ignored for just a moment while we enjoyed our vacation. The neighbor that moved in and you wish they hadn’t. That blissful time ends and we go back to life before vacation. And knowing the vacation is ending always makes vacation dim just a little, no matter how bright it is while we’re there. We always have that little snag in the back of our brain that says this Eden just won’t last, bud. It will all be over soon and you’ll be back in the same old grind. Enjoy it while you can.

But this week we read John’s Revelation on the Isle of Patmos. The risen Lord came to visit and remind John and us that he would return to take us home to live with him forever. John sees a lot of things in his time with the angels and Jesus on Patmos that we don’t understand. He didn’t understand it. Jesus told him to write down everything he saw and was told. And he said everyone who read it would be blessed. Not everyone who understood it would be blessed. And that’s a good thing because I don’t know anyone who fully understands John’s Revelation.

Once we stand in front of Jesus at the end of time, we will look back at each verse and we will say, “Oh, yeah! That’s what that means.” But until then, the book is clouded in mysticism and symbolism and vague references that we just can’t understand because we are not meant to know the time or the day of his coming. We are just to be ready for it. But the revelation also gives us some clues about that last movement of God’s word. Remember, we started in Genesis with God enjoying a face to face relationship with Adam and Eve. He walked in the Garden of Eden with his highest creation and talked with them. There was an intimacy in their relationship that was lost when Adam and Eve decided they knew better than God and launched out on their own path, disobeying his command to avoid that tree in the middle of the garden.

We saw in the second movement of God’s word how he raised a nation from Abraham to show us how to maintain relationships with each other in community and with him in worship. Israel is that nation. But they failed in the mission God gave Abraham to spread the news of that relationship and showing the other nations how to embrace him in as God.

So he came to earth in human flesh. God incarnate. Jesus. The third movement. The cross. He came to show us grace and truth in perfect harmony. He demonstrated through his perfect son, Jesus, how to live in harmony with the Father. He taught us to worship. He taught us to prayer. He gave himself as the perfect sacrifice so we can have life in him.

The fourth movement began in an upper room in Jerusalem at Pentecost. God returned in the form of his holy spirit to live not just among us, but in us. The movement of the church began. Those 120 who gathered in that upper room reached out to complete the task Jesus gave them as he ascended into heaven. Go. Make disciple. Teach them everything I taught you. Baptize them in names of the Father, Son, and Spirit.

We still live  in the movement of the church. We still have the same task Jesus gave those gathered around him on that day he was seen rising in the clouds. We still have the command to Go. Make disciples. Teach what we have been taught about him. Baptize in the name of the Father, Son, and Spirit. The task hasn’t changed. We’re still in the church movement expected to use the power of his spirit to do the work he told us to do.

But there is a final movement in God’s word. That revelation that is so hard to understand...except for the end of the story. Those last two chapters are pretty clear. We might not know what the new heaven and new earth will look like. We might not understand how a new Jerusalem can appear. We might not be able to comprehend how all of this golden streets and gates of pearl and unfathomable beauty can take place. But we can all agree that whatever John saw when he got a glimpse of heaven was beyond description.

There is coming a time and everyone who listens to God’s spirit knows the time, whether individually or collectively, is not far away, when we will be ushered into his presence. Those who believe in him will spend eternity in a place more beautiful that the most wonderful place you have ever been or imagined. We will live in a land without pain or sorrow or misery or evil or anger or any of those negative things that plague us on this side of the grave.

Everyone who believes in Jesus for the forgiveness of their sins knows from those last two chapters in John that Jesus is coming back to sweep us away. Paul tells us it will be in the blink of an eye. He will suddenly appear. Time will be no more. It will all be over. We will be with him forever. How fast do you blink? That’s the speed in which his coming will happen. Will you have time to make things right when he comes? In the blink of an eye? Maybe a little preparation is in order.  

You can find me at richardagee.com. I also invite you to join us at San Antonio First Church of the Nazarene on West Avenue in San Antonio to hear more about The Story and our part in it. You can find out more about my church at SAF.church. Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed it, tell a friend. If you didn’t, send me an email and let me know how better to reach out to those around you. Until next week, may God richly bless you as you venture into His story each day.