Archive for Devotional Companion to Revelation

The People of the Living God

2018-06-07 Devotional Companion to Revelation, Devotional with Hymn No comments

A reflection on Revelation 7:9-17,
the vision of the heavenly multitude

We are the people of the Living God.

Embattled,
rejected, and
sharing the suffering of our crucified Lord,
we are the people of the Living God.

Human but holy,
flawed but forgiven,
immature but growing daily in Christ,
we are the people of the Living God.

Chosen,
adopted,
redeemed,
sanctified, and
sealed as His very own,
we are the people of the Living God.

We are His Body,
His temple,
His treasured possession,
His precious children.

And soon, we will be His
holy,
glorious,
stunningly beautiful Bride,
aglow with the perfection of our Beloved.

We are the people of the Living God.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Chosen in Jesus
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I Am Yours

2018-05-31 Devotional Companion to Revelation, Devotional with Hymn No comments

A prayer response to Revelation 7:1-8,
the sealing of the 144,000

In sickness and
in struggle, Father,
I am Yours.
Through ordinary days and
when all the world is crumbling around me,
I am Yours.
In pain and
in grief,
when completely enveloped in darkness,
I am Yours.
When I am weak,
helpless,
sorrowful,
confused,
inconsistent,
ignorant, and
deeply, incurably needy,
I am Yours.

You have sealed me as Your very own.
No enemy can threaten me.
No authority can accuse me.
No judge can condemn me.
No power can separate me from the embrace of Your eternal love.

Father, now and forever,
I am Yours.

Can a woman forget her nursing child
And have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.
Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands.
(Isaiah 49:15-16, NASB)

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Be Still, My Child
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Hiding in You or from You?

2018-05-24 Devotional Companion to Revelation, Devotional with Hymn No comments

A prayer response to Revelation 6:9-17,
the opening of the fifth and sixth seals

Almighty, holy God, am I
hiding in You or
hiding from You?

When I am pursued and pressured by evil,
when doing what is right seems
less desirable than compromise,
less pleasant than “just this once,”
do I hide
in You or
from You?
Do I immediately turn toward You and
cling to You more tightly,
or do I let myself be drawn away toward some other “good”?
When temptation comes, do I move
toward You or
away from You?

Or to ask it another way:

When the Day of the Lord comes to all the earth,
when Your reality is suddenly obvious to everyone
and I realize that my eternal destiny is now fixed,
will I be
hiding in You or
hiding from You?

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Free to Choose
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Judgment Has Already Begun

2018-05-17 Devotional Companion to Revelation, Devotional with Hymn No comments

A prayer response to Revelation 6:1-8,
John’s vision of the four horsemen of the Apocalypse

Father, when we turn away from You,
we turn toward ourselves.
We separate ourselves from the only Source of
all that is good.

We turn away from love, and
we are self-centered,
controlling others for our own benefit.
We turn away from Your peace, and
strife grows in us and among us.
We turn away from Your abundance, and
our need and want increase.
We turn away from Your life, and
death is all that is left.

Part of Your judgment on our sin
comes with the sin itself.
The curse of sin immediately begins to infect
all we are and
all we do.
If we don’t turn away from our sin and back to You,
Your judgments will one day be complete and final.

Father, the four horsemen of the Apocalypse,
conquest,
war,
famine, and
death,
are riding among us right now.
They are not only riding through all of human history,
but through each of
our cultures,
our communities,
our families,
our individual lives.

Father of love,
Father of peace,
Father of all goodness,
Father of life,
we turn to You now.
Grow us toward Yourself
as flowers grow toward the sun.
We need You.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Prayer for Purity
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One Day

2018-05-10 Devotional Companion to Revelation, Devotional with Hymn No comments

A reflection on Revelation 5:8-14,
all creation worshiping the Lamb.

One day
all evil,
all deception,
all distraction will be gone
completely and
forever.
All will be light.
All will be truth.
We will see all reality like the morning sun,
pure and unclouded.

We will see Jesus Christ for all He is, the
transcendent,
unseeable,
unimaginable God in all His
beauty and
perfection.
And as we see Him,
we will become like Him.
Through all the universe,
seen and unseen,
all that is not of Him will be
burned away forever.

When that happens, all creation will be swept up
into one mighty response to its Creator,
full heart and
full voice.
Praise will roll like a tidal wave
through all reality.
We, all of us, will lift Him up for
all that He is and
all He has done.

But even then, our response to Him will be
small and
inadequate.
Through an endless eternity, His magnificence will draw us up into
lives of ever-increasing
thanksgiving,
worship, and
love.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Enthronement Hymn
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The Lamb of God

2018-05-03 Devotional Companion to Revelation, Devotional with Hymn No comments

A reflection on Revelation 5:1-7,
John’s vision of the Lamb of God

The stage is set.
The glowing introduction has built to a climax.
We eagerly await the next moment,
when we will finally meet the One so long promised:
the Mighty Conqueror,
the Root of David,
the King of all Kings,
the Lion of Judah.
At last we are about to see the One who is worthy
to bring to living reality all the
magnificent plans and
magnificent promises of our sovereign, loving God.
All the sprawling creation is about to meet
the One through Whom it was created,
its hope,
its Redeemer.

But behold the Man!
The Lion is a Sacrificial Lamb.
The Mighty Conqueror is One slaughtered,
still bearing His wounds.
The King of all Kings is a Servant.
The Lord of all Lords is a homeless peasant, without
power,
status, or
any attractiveness whatsoever.

Yet this One has overcome
all evil
everywhere,
for all time.
This one has conquered
through self-sacrifice, not self-fulfillment,
through complete dependence, not complete self-sufficiency,
through weakness, not strength.

And this One stands with His arms outstretched,
calling to each of us and all of us:

“If anyone wishes to come after Me,
he must deny himself, and
take up his cross and
follow Me.” (Matthew 16:24, NASB)

This is our all-conquering hero.
This is our Leader,
This is the One against whom
all rightness,
all success
all victory is measured:
He is Christ crucified.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Christ Crucified
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Be His Praise

2018-04-26 Devotional Companion to Revelation, Devotional with Hymn No comments

A reflection on Revelation 4,
John’s vision of the throne room of God.

Look at John’s vision of the throne room of God and
see who you were created to be.

See the twenty-four elders.
They are honored ones,
respected leaders,
perhaps priests.
They are royal,
each wearing a crown of gold.
They are holy,
dressed in white.
They worship God Almighty with
word and
posture and
action.
They joyfully return to Him
all the honor and glory He has shared with them.
They know that all their crowns truly, only belong to Him.
The twenty-four elders are what God’s people were redeemed to be.

See the four living creatures.
They surround the throne of the Sovereign Lord of all.
Each is wisely and lovingly fashioned by his Creator.
Each is unique
yet one with all He has made.
Each is full of eyes in front and behind and is
fully aware of all reality,
fully attentive to their God.
Each has six wings and
is ready to move immediately at His command.
Each ceaselessly responds to God in all His
holiness,
power, and
eternity.
The four living creatures are what we were created to be.

Like the elders,
like the living creatures,
we exalt God most clearly and beautifully,
not just by what we say,
but by what we do and
who we are.

The infinite Spirit God, unlimited by a physical body,
incarnates Himself in partial ways
in each of His creatures.
He shares Himself and His qualities
through us
so that the whole universe might glimpse just how
great and
holy and
gracious He is.

Child of God,
be His praise!
Be His glory!
In Jesus Christ, be the incarnation of
His life,
His love, and
His holy beauty.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: God of All People
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Start with God

2018-04-19 Devotional Companion to Revelation, Devotional with Hymn No comments

A reflection on Revelation 4,
John’s vision of the throne room of God.

Do you want to better understand your life?
Do you want to better understand your world?
Yourself?
Start with God.
See Him high and lifted up.
See Him for who He is:
all power,
all wisdom,
all love, justice, and rightness.

All that is flows from Him, the Source.
All that is flows through Him,
the Mover,
the Means,
the Doer,
the Planner,
the Power.
All that is flows to Him, the Goal.

To understand
your purpose,
your design,
your destiny,
start with Him,
for He is the Source and Goal of all you are.
This marvelous God made You in His own image.
He made you to be like Himself.

He is holy,
free from wrong,
free from anything that binds, corrupts, or destroys.
And He longs to make you holy.
He understands your limitations, yet
He intends to make you holy as He is holy,
completely,
freely,
naturally,
by simple faith.

He loves
lavishly,
abundantly,
without any selfishness or reserve.
And He frees you to love the same.

He is eternal,
without beginning or end.
He is unbound by time –
never hurried.
Time is not His master,
but His slave.
And He wants to share His limitless eternity with you.

Do you want to understand
your purpose,
your design,
your destiny?
Do you want to begin to experience
what your life can be
today and every day?
Know and worship God
high and lifted up.
Start with Him.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: High and Holy Sovereign God
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Knocking

2018-04-12 Devotional Companion to Revelation, Devotional with Hymn No comments

A prayer response to Revelation 3:14-22,
Christ’s letter to the church in Laodicea

Jesus,
You come and offer me the boundless wealth of
all You have and
all You are,
yet I cling to my meager resources.

You ask to clothe me in Yourself, and
I angrily resist,
wrapping myself more tightly in my filthy rags.

You freely offer me Your wisdom, but
my ignorance feels so much safer and more familiar.

Despite all this,
You humbly stand at my door,
day after day,
need after need, and
simply knock.
Your only desire is to offer me Yourself:
Your ability for all my weakness,
Your beautiful purity for all my sin,
Your sight for my total blindness,
Your glory for my deep shame.

You have done all You can for me and
will always do all You can,
but my destiny depends on me trusting You enough to
invite You in.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: Seeking Me
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Church, Follow Me

2018-04-05 Devotional Companion to Revelation, Devotional with Hymn One comment

A reflection on Revelation 3:7-13,
Christ’s letter to the church in Philadelphia

My Church,
I do not call you
to human success,
to fulfill grand ambitions, or
to make a great name for yourself.

I call you to a real, living relationship with Me.
Trust Me and
follow Me,
not just with your words,
but with your daily lives, with
every word you speak and
every decision you make.

During my earthly life, I focused on
saying what my Father told me to say and
doing what my Father showed me to do.
Keep your focus the same, and
you will be like Me.
People will see Me in you, and
they will know that you are mine.

As you follow Me,
my Father and I will claim you as Our very own.
We will write Our names on you for everyone to see.
You will belong to Us, and
you will be with Us
completely,
beautifully,
now and forever.

Church,
just follow Me.

Listen and sing:
Hymn: We Fix Our Eyes on Jesus Christ
Recording
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