For nearly 4 years, I have brought you over 800 unique daily devotionals across 31 different series. I’ve shared these series and posts on social media and want to thank all who have followed my devotional writing. I hope that it has inspired you to read the Bible more often and understand it more deeply.
With the end of the Revelation series, I am bringing an end to my daily maintenance of this site. I hope that it will still be of help to many as you can search by category and read any of the series that you’d like. I would encourage you to continue to read the Bible daily and use my devotional series as you study and learn.
I hope to bring more of these devotionals into print as well. If you’d like to buy a copy of my devotional series through the book of Mark, you can find it here. It is a great resource for those who are new to the Bible and can be a great first-time visitor gift for churches to give away.
Blessings and thank you for being on this journey with me!
This final chapter of the Bible is one of my favorite passages in the Bible. The description of the streams flowing through the streets of heaven brings me a supernatural peace. I am reminded of Psalm 23 in which God “leads me beside peaceful streams.” For a shepherd boy like David writing a worship song, he’s thinking about his daily life. For me, I’m imagining a different world entirely.
In John 7, Jesus describes this eternal living water as well. There is a connection between the Holy Spirit flowing through his people and these eternal, living streams. As we think about the supernatural, eternal realm, we have to be careful not to boil things down to what we know here on earth. Jesus use symbols and parables to try to relate the kingdom of God to earthly things we could understand. But the reality is far greater than we can imagine.
An angel is giving John and us a final tour of heaven, a glimpse into a reality we can only imagine. There is a beckoning that cries out to us from Jesus himself: “Come!” If you close your eyes for a moment, and pause long enough to feel still, you just might hear it. A beckoning, a longing, a distant cry for a better world. The whole world is crying out for help, groaning and buckling under the weight of suffering. We have glimpses of hope and goodness here on earth, but these are simply shadows of God’s kingdom. I imagine a call-and-response that the entire world is doing with Jesus. “Help!” “Come!” “Help!” “Come!” If you can hear that beckoning to come to a greater place, follow that voice. Dig deep into the Bible to listen to the words of God, most fully complete in the person of Jesus. And then ready yourself for a grand entrance into his kingdom, where we will feast and dance and bask in the end of evil. This is the hope upon which I have built my life.
If you have ever seen the Wizard of Oz, you may remember the reaction of Dorothy and her friends when they first spot the Emerald City. They had followed the yellow brick road to get to this place that they had never seen, full of hope that they would be rescued from the Wicked Witch of the West. Sadly, the great Wizard of Oz was just a sham. But the magnificence of the Emerald City is what I think of when I read today’s chapter. God’s ultimate city is full of sparkling gems, gold, and brilliant light.
This chapter also emphasizes what will not be allowed in God’s great city: evil, idolatry, and dishonesty among other things. There is no way to cling to these things and enter God’s presence because they are diametrically opposed to him. This chapter describes what was first established in Genesis 2: total intimacy and connection with God. Psalm 5:3-5 describes that closeness and the way in which evil cannot come into the presence of God. For those who delight in evil, that is a threat. For those who want protection from evil, it is a tremendous gift.
The heart of the Gospel is that it is free to all who want it. Jesus has made a way for you to live eternally with him in the most glorious of cities. If you are looking for a way out of the evil of this world, it’s yours for the taking! If your life has been built on the stuff of this world, then you are probably not interested in what he has to offer. I don’t think scare tactics about the flames of hell are the best way to share the Gospel, though some take passages like this one and use it for that purpose. I’d rather talk about what Jesus has to offer, not just for eternity but for your life right now. Eternal life doesn’t start when you die. You are in the first stages of your life now, and it continues on if you follow Jesus into his city. More adventures await but it starts right here.
The book of Revelation is hauntingly specific, but we have to be careful when we interpret what we read. Is today’s chapter talking about a literal 1,000 years? Will the cities be called Gog and Magog or is that a symbolic reference? No matter how we choose to read it, interpretation is required. If I decide that I believe it is a literal 1,000 years, that is my interpretation. If I decide to read it as symbolism, that is my interpretation. I would encourage you to think for yourself, read a variety of different opinions and scholarly ideas, and hold loosely to your interpretation. We all need a healthy appreciation for the fact that we can get it wrong.
Let’s zoom in on a few details that aren’t focused on the exact timeline of the end times but are interesting nonetheless. My first observation is that an angel is assigned with throwing the great dragon (Satan) into the bottomless pit. If I were God, I might not delegate that one. I continue to find it interesting the various jobs that angels do, both in Revelation and throughout the Bible. We know from chapter 19 that the beast, the false prophet, and their demonic army were all killed with Jesus’ sword and their carcasses eaten by vultures. Now the ultimate ringmaster — Satan himself — will be taken down. We also again see that those who were killed for their faith have a special place in ruling with Christ. Meanwhile, those not in the “Book of Life” are thrown into a lake of fire, along with death itself.
Death is awful. I’ve sat with a lot of grieving people who have been impacted by the deaths of loved ones. We’ve all seen people die too young and we know that life is too short. From an eternal perspective, we have hope that death is not the end of our story and that we have eternal life with Jesus. Jesus is going to kill the very concept of death itself. I don’t know what the “Book of Life” is or how that connects to humanity versus demons, but I know that evil will not remain when Jesus wins the final victory. If my heart is attached to evil and if I participate in systems of death, it seems that I will not have Jesus’ heart. Let’s be careful not to narrow the definition of “life” too much — sometimes American Christians use this argument for the abortion debate but ignore everything else that “pro-life” means. There are so many oppressive, death-filled systems we need to oppose so let’s not just choose the convenient ones that don’t impact our lives. Who makes your clothes, who builds your phones, who’s allowed to seek refuge in your town or city? Are we rising to the top on the backs of modern day slaves and closing our doors to the poor and helpless? These are hard questions that we have to tackle when we sit with just how pro-life Jesus is.
Take a moment to read Revelation 19:11-21 before reading the devotional below.
Most Christians imagine Jesus riding into victory on a white horse in the final battle to defeat Satan. Today’s passage is where that image comes from. Notice the various names given to Jesus: Faithful and True, Word of God, King of kings, and Lord of lords. The wrath of God is expressed through his use of the sword to strike down nations. When Jesus’ killing spree is over, the angels call the vultures over to devour the dead bodies of the beast, the false prophet, and their entire army. It’s a bloody scene, and even Jesus’ robe was dipped in blood (likely his own).
Most people don’t imagine Jesus as one who avenges his enemies by a sword. In fact, he corrected Peter when he used a sword to slice off a guard’s ear during Jesus’ arrest. Is Jesus out for blood and revenge? Ultimately, yes. He’s not out for humans to die, here he is avenging humanity by slaughtering the beast, the false prophet, and their demonic army. Remember from Ephesians 6:12 that the battle is not against humans, but against the powers and authorities of darkness.
Before Jesus was born, many religious leaders were looking for the Messiah to come as a governmental king or ruler. They very much expected a sword in his hand and a bloodbath to conquer their earthly enemies at the time: the Romans. They could not believe that Jesus was their guy. He spent more time healing people and casting out demons than trying to overthrow kings. Why? Because Jesus knew that his real enemy was Satan. He didn’t waste time fighting earthly fights because the supernatural battle was too great to lose. He stayed focused on his mission and fought in ways that most didn’t fully understand. In your own life, be sure to fight the right fight. If you are battling against a person, you’re off track. Wage war against the demonic powers that surround us rather than the people who get caught up in Satan’s grip. And when you look for Jesus to come again, don’t replace his supernatural horse and sword for an earthly one or you won’t even recognize him.
