DECEMBER 22, 2023

 

REVELATION 13

9Whoever has ears, let them hear.

10“If anyone is to go into captivity,

into captivity they will go.

If anyone is to be killed^c with the sword,

with the sword they will be killed.”^d

This calls for patient endurance and faithfulness on the part of God’s people.

JOURNAL 

God is either a refuge or your worst nightmare. To read Revelation along with predictive prophecy from the Old Testament is definitely enlightening. God is our refuge no matter the situation we find ourselves. Good times or bad he is our ultimate source of hope and direction. 

Reading these verses in the comfort and ease of my life makes the life of the Bible seem so foreign and unrelatable. Yet comfort and ease are not what make life great, purposeful or meaningful. The chance to live and have impact on this world for good, that is what makes life meaningful and that is only truly accomplished when God's love is active and fruitful in our hearts. Because regardless of our physical condition in either comfort or suffering, having a purpose and fulfilling that purpose is what truly brings joy to our lives. 

The world is full of those that have everything they could ever want or need yet are miserable and joyless. So the miracle and beauty of God is that he makes everything better, he gives those with plenty as well as those with little a reason to live. That reason is to give and live love. What a word, what a message. 

12My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. 13Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. 14You are my friends if you do what I command. 15I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. 16You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. 17This is my command: Love each other.

JOHN 15:12-17