Day Sixty-Three: Revelation 10-14

“[The Beast] required everyone—small and great, rich and poor, free and slave—to be given a mark on the right hand or on the forehead. And no one could buy or sell anything without that mark, which was either the name of the beast or the number representing his name. Wisdom is needed here. Let the one with understanding solve the meaning of the number of the beast, for it is the number of a man. His number is 666.” (13. 16-18)

When you read Revelation, 1) start with what John is talking about in the context of Revelation, 2) then go back to what it means against the backdrop of the OT, 3) then you look at John’s historical context, and 4) last you make the application to today. 

In the OT book of Ezekiel, people are marked for destruction or salvation.  This is probably what John is alluding to.  The mark is an indication of whose you are.  If you belong to Jesus, you need not fear being “tricked” into taking the mark.  

666?  Probably a reference to Nero.  Caesar Nero in Aramaic has the number value of 666.  Nero was one of the worst persecutors of Christians in history, and so he embodies the kind of Satanic opposition that Christians face in the world.

Not being able to buy or sell anything without the mark? Probably a reference to the imperial edicts that forbade commerce for those who were unwilling to say, “Caesar is Lord”.  It represents the persecution and marginalization of Christians as they try to live for Christ. 

But it brings to light one of the most common pitfalls of interpreting Revelation: running immediately to current events and modern technology.  This misses the meaning.

Ever since microchip technology has been available, Christians have speculated that the Mark of the Beast is not far away.  The logic goes like this.  Humans are being biochipped.  That sounds like the mark of the beast in the book of Revelation.  If the mark of the beast is here, then so must the rest of the end times.  If the end times are here, we better get our act together!

But is this really the motivation that we are supposed to have to get our act together?  Aren’t we meant to live every day in light of eternity?  Aren’t we supposed to live under the sobering reality that at any moment you could stop breathing?  If you need some kind of doom to motivate you to change, then go to the Internet and read about people your age who die every day.  

You will die.  This means that now, while you have breath, you must live for Christ.

Day Sixty-Two: Revelation 5-9

And they sang a new song with these words:

   “You are worthy to take the scroll
      and break its seals and open it.
   For you were slaughtered, and your blood has ransomed people for God
      from every tribe and language and people and nation.
   And you have caused them to become
      a Kingdom of priests for our God.
      And they will reign on the earth.”

Then I looked again, and I heard the voices of thousands and millions of angels around the throne and of the living beings and the elders.  And they sang in a mighty chorus:

   “Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered—
      to receive power and riches
   and wisdom and strength
      and honor and glory and blessing.”

And then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea. They sang:

   “Blessing and honor and glory and power
      belong to the one sitting on the throne
      and to the Lamb forever and ever.”

And the four living beings said, “Amen!” And the twenty-four elders fell down and worshiped the Lamb. (5.9-14)

If we can get a picture of what really lasts in the end, then maybe we can decide what we should be investing our lives in.  When you see what remains when everything else is stripped away, it causes you to re-evaluate what is really important.

In the future, what will really last?  What is really important?  The book of Revelation in general and this text, specifically gives us the answer: there is much more to life than the here and now.  In fact, the here and now is insignificant to the vastness of eternity.  And in eternity what will remain, what will go on forever is worship.  

That should put things into perspective.  Popularity – it will not go on forever.  Success – it will not go on forever.  Money – it will not go on forever.  Worship of God will go on forever and ever.  But it is bigger than that.  Not just worship. God means to have worship from every people group in the world.    

Do you want to know the reason why we do missions?  It is because there are places in the world where worship does not yet exist.  There are places all over the world where God’s name has not been made famous.  There are people in the world that do not yet know the glory of God’s forgiveness.  

And so the implication of this truth doesn’t take a lot of stretching to see: the invitation is for people to stand up and be His hands and feet in His victory… people to share in the joy of his victory, going and sharing the message as more and more people from all over the world come to the worship our great and glorious king.

Will you join him in his mission today?  Will you give your life to his mission in the future?

Day Sixty-One: Revelation 1-4

One of the central messages of the book of Revelation is the calling of the church to testify to who God is and what he has done, no matter what.

The word that keeps coming up again and again is this word “witness”.  

This is how John introduces himself: “his servant John, who faithfully reported everything he saw.  This is his report of the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ.” (1.1-2)

This is how John introduces Christ: “Jesus Christ... the faithful witness.” (1.5)

This is how Jesus refers to a man who was martyred in Pergamum: “Antipas, my faithful witness, martyred among you.” (2.13)  

Incidentally, the word “martyr” means “witness”.

Later in the book, the church will be symbolized by two witnesses who speak the truth in the midst of opposition (ch. 11). 

A witness is a person who simply reports what they have seen. This is what you are called to do.  To witness.  You are not called to make up anything.  You simply must testify to what you have seen, heard and experienced.  Do this regardless of what kind of opposition comes.

To be silent is to be a false witness.  If you know Christ, bear witness to him through your actions and words.

Lord, help me to be a faithful witness today, regardless of the cost.  Amen.

Day Sixty: 2 Peter, Jude

In view of all this, make every effort to respond to God’s promises. Supplement your faith with a generous provision of moral excellence, and moral excellence with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with patient endurance, and patient endurance with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love for everyone. The more you grow like this, the more productive and useful you will be in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 

The promises of God call for a response.  God has provided everything for us in Jesus, and the only natural response is that we would press hard after him.

Peter gives us a great list of different skills and disciplines that we need to train ourselves in:

moral excellence

knowledge

self-control

patient endurance

godliness

brotherly affection

love for everyone

I think a lot of times we shrink faithfulness down to only one or two of these areas, but true maturity means to excel at all of them.  

The crazy thing is that God often allows us into difficult situations so that he can train our character.  That temptation that seems particularly alluring?  A chance to grow in self-control.  The extra long wait in traffic?  An opportunity to train yourself in patient endurance.  That person who requires some extra care?  An opportunity for God to teach you how to love.

Remember this.  God has given you what you need.  Trials are training. Christlike character is the goal.

Lord, help me to respond to the wonderful promises you have given to me. Amen.

Day Fifty-Nine: 1 Peter

“You love him even though you have never seen him. Though you do not see him now, you trust him; and you rejoice with a glorious, inexpressible joy.” (1.8)

You haven’t even seen Jesus Christ, yet you love him, Peter says. You don’t see him right now, and yet you believe in him, and yet you rejoice.  There is something about faith in Christ that will never make sense to those who do not believe.  How can you love so deeply someone who you have never seen?  How can you believe in him and rejoice even though you don’t see him now?  Where do those impulses of the heart come from?  They come from the new birth, from being born again.

Love for Christ is the natural impulse of a heart that has been reborn.  

Joy in Christ is the natural impulse of a heart that has been reborn.

Being born again means the cultivation of new affections, new desires for God.  Your heart has been given a new sensory ability, and it moves in the direction of God. You are given new longings, spiritual longings, and new senses, spiritual senses.  These things naturally accompany being a re-born human.  You begin to hunger spiritually for God; you begin to thirst for his presence.  You are given new eyes to begin to see the world the way that God sees it.

Suddenly you find that you want to please God.  You find yourself longing for his word.  You find your heart moved by the thought of Him and what he has done for you.  You are affected by the preaching of his word.  You desire God. You desire the things of God.

If you have no spiritual desires, no spiritual senses, if Christianity is just a religion and not a new way of living in and experiencing the world, then you must examine your heart.  Is there any evidence that you have been “born again?”

If you do find evidence, a hunger for him, be encouraged.  Find assurance not in a past experience of doing something, but in the present faith that moves you to love Christ, though you do not see him; the faith that moves you to believe and rejoice even when that belief makes no sense to anyone else.  

This is not your doing.  God is at work in your life. Keep coming back to this rock that is Christ.  He will satisfy your hunger, and quench your thirst.

Day Fifty-Eight: 2-3 John

2 John is a short book.  When they added the verses to it, it only got 13 verses.  And yet, in such a short letter, John manages to make it all about the theme that has captivated his life:

“I am writing to remind you, dear friends, that we should love one another.  This is not a new commandment, but one we have had from the beginning.” (v. 5)

Nothing new, John says, just the same commandment that we have always built our lives around: love one another.

The interesting thing is that he proceeds to connect this command to a heresy (false teaching) that is cropping up throughout the church: the teaching that Jesus did not really come in a real body.  The people who were saying this had a negative view of the body and the earth, they were all about the spiritual realm.  The body is inherently evil, they argued, therefore, how could Jesus have had one?

And John says, this is a false teaching.  Jesus did have a body; John walked with him and talked with him.  And besides this, without bodies we cannot fulfill the central command to love each other.  

Love is not a matter of good feelings or emotions, but of actually using your strength to meet the needs of others. 

Jesus had a body, and in his body he loved us to the full.

Let us use our bodies, our strength, our hands, our feet to love well today.  Amen.

Day Fifty-Seven: 1 John 4-5

It should be valuable to note how the Apostle John ends his letter.  What was the last thing that John wanted the recipients of his letter to know?  The truth.  Three times in 5:20, he repeats this word true: “we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true—even in his Son Jesus Christ. He is the true God and eternal life.”

Our God is true.  He is reality, substance in a world of shadow.  Now why does John make such a big deal about this word?  Because of 5.21- he knows that his readers are in danger, and we are in danger of replacing the true God, the real God with a counterfeit, with a clever copy, substituting our idea of God for the real thing.  This is called an idol, and John says, keep yourself from this.  In other words, don’t lose the real thing. 

If spiritual life is all about loving God and then loving people, then we are always in danger of falling in love with the idea of God instead of God.  And we are always in danger of falling in love with the idea of loving people rather than actually loving people.  That’s the diagnosis. What is the cure?

People who are experts in counterfeit money do their job well not by knowing a lot about counterfeits but by knowing the real thing really well. So the cure for our tendency to give in to counterfeits is to keep going back to the one who is true. The only way to keep yourself from idols is to engage the real God.  The only way to engage the real God is to enter a relationship with him and get to know him.  This is what you must do today, and every day.

Every day, you must look at the one who is true.  You must continue to pursue him. 

Real life requires the real you, before the real God in real relationship. Ideas and ideals are not enough. Real life requires action, engagement, and commitment.  

Don’t lose the real thing.

What action will you take today to keep you from losing the real thing?