Reading Through The New Testament in 2016 - December 29th, 2016 - Revelation 21

This might be my favorite part of the whole Bible (I know, I say that a lot).

There’s so much hope. There’s so much of what my heart is longing for.

Revelation 21 gives us an eschatology of hope. Not doom, despair, destruction, but a new heaven and a new earth, and everything will be as it always should have been.

No tears.

No death.

God will dwell with us.

That’s the vision of the end for those that remain faithful to Jesus.

Everything will be new.

That means, there will be no cancer. There will be no suicide. There will be no genocide. There will be no dictators. No starvation. No AIDS. No drought.

Everything will be made new.

I think this is why the early Christians were able to suffer so much without losing faith or hope. They knew how it was going to end for them. They knew that this suffering is temporary and that a new Jerusalem is coming.

Do you know that your suffering is temporary?

Take a moment to reflect on the end.

Take a moment to know that in the end everything will be made as it always should have been.

Here’s Revelation 21:1-8

Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,”[a] for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. 2 I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. 3 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. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’[b] or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

5 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.”

6 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. 7 Those who are victorious will inherit all this, and I will be their God and they will be my children. 8 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.”