Revelation Advent Calendar - Chapter 6

And I heard what seemed to be a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying, "A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius, and do not harm the oil and wine!" (Revelation 6:6)

The idea from Revelation 6 above is in the first verse of today's song, but mostly it's based on this text from some words of Jesus recorded in Matthew 24:

For as in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day when Noah entered the ark, and they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away, so will be the coming of the Son of Man. Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left. Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming. (Matthew 24:38-42)

And for anyone who was a Christian kid in the 90s, here's the almost equally famous DC Talk cover of Larry's song:

Life was filled with guns and war
And everyone got trampled on the floor
I wish we'd all been ready

Children died the days grew cold
A piece of bread could buy a bag of gold
I wish we'd all been ready

There's no time to change your mind
The son has come and you've been left behind

A man and wife asleep in bed
She hears a noise and turns her head, he's gone
I wish we'd all been ready

Two men walking up a hill
One disappears and one's left standing still
I wish we'd all been ready

There's no time to change your mind
The son has come and you've been left behind

There's no time to change your mind
How could you have been so blind
The father spoke the demons dined
The son has come and you've been left behind

You've been left behind
You've been left behind

 

Live Like There's Every Tomorrow

And do this, understanding the present time: The hour has already come for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here. So let us put aside the deeds of darkness and put on the armor of light. Let us behave decently, as in the daytime, not in carousing and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and debauchery, not in dissension and jealousy. Rather, clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh. - Romans 13:11-14 NIV

Paul wrote that to the church in Rome thousands of years ago. He was writing to Christians — people who had already given their hearts to Jesus "when they first believed." These days, we call that "salvation", but Paul refers to salvation here as a future thing. Didn't they already have salvation? Weren't they "saved"?

Of course they were! At least, they were the way we use the term today. What I realized when I read this passage this morning was that Paul is talking about our full salvation... not just the salvation of our spiritual selves, which we obtain by putting our faith in Jesus, but the salvation of our bodies and minds, which will happen in the resurrection at the end of time. Jesus will come back, the dead in Christ will rise first, we will meet them in the air, and we will all be changed! (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17 NIV, 1 Corinthians 15:51-55 NIV)

What Paul is telling them and us here is that we need to seek to live our lives as though this had already happened. Live as though you are already in God's kingdom of light, wrapped in his armor, behaving like someone who has been fully saved, spirit mind and body. Act like Jesus has returned, the book of Revelation has been played out, and eternity has begun. This is the life of faith! This is God's best for us. But if we figuratively stay in bed, if we don't "rise and let Christ shine on us," we won't access this best life that Jesus has made available to us until then.

Paul says we can have it now! Don't live like there's no tomorrow... we're living in the first day of eternity! Let's live like there's every tomorrow!

Blessed is the Man

This is a picture of something I've seen every business day this year. It's the front of a mug my wife gave me at Epiphany, and every day I look at it and think about what Jeremiah 17:7 says. I started to notice, though, that on different days different parts stood out to me, and eventually I realized that this verse was unfolding into multiple meanings, like a flower opening up into full bloom over the course of many days. I wanted to share some of those thoughts - as you're reading, maybe something will unfold for you today!

There are a bunch of important ideas in this verse: "Blessed." "Trust." "Hope." Let's look at each of them, starting with "blessed." We all want to be "blessed," of course, but to different people that might mean different things. If your car breaks down, you might be "blessed" by a friend who is able and willing to fix it for you for free. If you run out of groceries the day before payday, you might be "blessed" by a friend who buys your lunch. Or, you might be "blessed" by someone giving you a compliment, telling you you did well on a job task or even mentioning that they like the sweater you're wearing.

Those are all excellent blessings, and I certainly think they are included in this verse (especially considering the context, which I want to look at later in another post). But I think the bigger picture, the real "blessing" of God, is much more all-encompassing. I think the blessing of God means that things will go well for you. Your life will be characterized by joy and peace, even when you hit a rough patch. God gave us a picture of what His blessing looks like back in Moses' day:

The LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to Aaron and his sons, saying, Thus you shall bless the people of Israel: you shall say to them,

The LORD bless you and keep you;
the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;
the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace."

(Numbers 6:22-26 ESV)

The words rendered "trust" and "hope" in the translation of Jeremiah 17:7 on my mug (New King James?) are related words in Hebrew - many translations actually translate them both "trust". The first one is a verb. But it's not the kind of verb like "run" or "ride" or "sing" that is something you specifically do - trusting this way can only be detected by other things you do. Your actions are affected because your attitude is one of trust in God.

The second word, "hope", is a noun. This word means confidence. You can act in trust, because you have confidence in God. It also means your security. Like living in a house with locked doors, you know that nothing can get to you without going through your God first.

But "hope" also can mean something else. It also means that your mind believes there is a chance that something good will happen. When a man on a raft in the middle of the ocean sees a ship sailing toward him, it gives him hope. When a worried wife of a soldier hears news that the war is over, it gives her hope. When a student looks at his transcript with a counselor and sees that graduation is only a few credits away, it gives him hope. Hope is something you believe, based on facts that you know. The fact it's talking about in this verse, the one which gives you hope, is God Himself. Based on that fact, you can have hope in every situation.

But the Bible tells us about one more important hope we have:

[We are] waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ...

(Titus 2:13 ESV)

Our greatest hope, the one to which all other hopes pale in comparison, is our hope of eternal life with Jesus when He returns. This is the hope that still stands when all other hopes fall... when the man on the raft is taking his dying breath without that ship ever showing up, when the wife receives visitors that no military wife ever wants to see at her doorstep, when that student unexpectedly has to quit school because of a family need - when those hopes are lost, this hope remains.

Did you notice that it does not say, "...whose hope is in the Lord?" It says that the person who is blessed is the person "...whose hope is the Lord." Jesus doesn't give you hope. Jesus is your hope. Jesus is your hope of a new better life when this one is over. Jesus is your hope of provision and comfort in this life. Jesus is your hope of joy and peace and contentment. He is your hope of all blessing. Choose to take action based on your confidence in Him. Just try it and see what happens!


(Oh, by the way... if you love the cup that inspired this post, you can get your own right here.)

My Dream Of Jesus' Second Coming

Last Sunday as we were discussing the events of the week before in Sunday school, I was reminded of a dream I had last summer. I dreamed about Jesus' Second Coming. The next day I mentioned it to my Sunday school teacher Shelley, just offhand, not even thinking anything of it, just that it was a cool dream. She immediately emailed me back wanting to know the details; she said she thought it might have significance to what was happening at Grace Church. When she said that, I immediately knew she was right; I don't always have "spiritual" dreams (last night, for example, I dreamed of throwing rolls of toilet paper at people's heads!) but occasionally I do, and it turns out this was one of them.Here's the dream, as I described it in an email to Shelley on July 1:

In the dream, Cathy and I and John and Sheri (our friends who have been coming to Sunday School lately) were at a restaurant. I never knew what restaurant it was, even while I was dreaming it, and I don't remember what we were doing exactly (I don't remember us eating anything). My kids were not with us (not unusual, since they hang out with their Meme sometimes when we go out.) Suddenly in the middle of whatever we were doing, there was a loud BANG that I thought of at the time as a "sonic boom" but it was extremely loud and sharp, like a gunshot from a really high-power gun. Not like a long BOOOOOOOOM but like a short POW!!! that went right through us. I looked up, and I could clearly see the horizon as though there were no wall any more to the room we were in. Not looking out a window; just no wall. The sky was bright, although not painfully glaringly bright; I'd say morning-like, although there was no indication one way or another whether we had been at breakfast or up early. I remember fluffy white clouds. I do not remember seeing the sun or any sun rays, but the sky was definitely lit. Between the clouds and us, far in the distance, I could see Jesus. He was a cartoon character! He was flat like a cutout, and looked sort of like anime, although He was so far away that He was tiny and I couldn't make out too many details. He was smiling and very happy. He was not animated like a cartoon on TV; He was motionless, not even visibly getting nearer. The light in the sky did not appear to be coming from Him. I got SO excited when I saw Him that I was jumping up and down, and you know I'm not generally the jumping up and down type. And that was the end! I woke up excited and happy! In the dream there was no indication at all that the cartoon character was not actually Jesus, and although nothing else in the dream was a cartoon, it didn't seem strange to me at all at the time that He was a cartoon. In the dream I was definitely positive that it was Jesus Himself. The overall impression that I woke up was that Jesus is on the way, not any feeling of seeing a counterfeit Jesus or anything like that.

The interpretation that I received after praying about it had to do with the fact that we had been studying a book about how God should move in miracles in our daily life as a sign to unbelievers. Inspired by the Lakeland revival that was occurring at the time, we had been praying for a revival move of God at our church. The meaning of my dream was that when God moved, it was going to look totally different from what I expected... as different as the real Jesus would be from a cartoon character version of Him. The things that happened two weeks ago fit that bill... I would have never predicted that a move of God on our class would be quite like that one was. It was amazing! And the next time, I expect it will be more amazing and unexpected still. We serve a God of endless creativity; I can't wait to see how He will surprise me next!