revelation reality

Yesterday, I finished a Beth Moore bible study on the book of Revelation. I have to be honest, in the past Revelation has scared the living daylights out of me. When I read all those things about ten horns on beasts and beings that are covered with eyes, it’s well, kind of freaked me out. Even the way Jesus is described seems strange; a sword coming out of his mouth, what’s that all about? Now, I do realize that this book is full of symbols--some we aren’t going to understand on this side of eternity. Nevertheless, I wanted to understand this book better. Mostly because of an intriguing promise made in the very first chapter of the book.

  ¹ The revelation from Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place. He made it known by sending his angel to his servant John, ² who testifies to everything he saw—that is, the word of God and the testimony of Jesus Christ. ³ Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near.

Did you catch that treasure in verse three:  Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take to heart what is written in it, because the time is near. Who doesn’t want to receive a blessing? So, not knowing what to expect, I took a deep breath and dove right in.

What happened took me by surprise. I found myself enjoying it. Instead of the nightmares, or frustration, or fear I expected, it gave me a gift I hadn’t anticipated; feelings of hope and peace. Hope, because there is an end to this unhappy story and peace because no matter what is happening in the world around me, one day it will all be set right. Jesus is the best and greatest king of all and his stories always have happy endings.

Quite refreshing in a world that seems addicted to darkness. I’m an avid reader, but lately I’ve been quite discouraged. A lot of the literature that’s out there these days have such dark themes. Many of them don’t end happily ever after.

Call me a hopeless romantic, or a sap, or naïve, but I love happy endings. It makes me wonder why it’s so in vogue to have all these stories with darker themes. Is it because we’ve become so jaded that we just don’t believe in happily-ever-afters anymore? And if so, how sad for us.

Personally, in my heart I’ve got to believe that this wasn’t what we were destined for. We weren’t meant to suffer and hurt and cry. We weren’t meant to go to our grave becoming nothing but dust and ashes. We were meant for eternity. Made for it, in fact.

You see, I think God’s a hopeless romantic who loves happily-ever-afters as much as we do. And even after Adam and Eve became his enemies, God had a plan to fix what had been broken--sending Jesus to pay the price to bring us home where we will truly live happily ever after.

^{Revelation 22:1} Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb ² down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. ³ No longer will there be any curse.