Advent Season
Week 51 Day 5
Pray:
Ask God to reorient you to Himself. Confess any known sin. Thank Him for His forgiveness. Be still and reflect on Jesus and His sacrifice for you. Ask the Holy Spirit to open your heart and mind to God’s Word. Pray for others in your life that they, too, would know and love God today.
Read:
Rev. 21:1-5 Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea. I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Now the dwelling of God is with men, and he will live with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” 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.”
Reflect:
The future is focused on the “new.” A new heaven, new earth, new Jerusalem, new “everything.” If you like change then you like “new.” If you don’t like change this may not sound compelling to you. The truth is everyone likes change they like…and everyone dislikes change they don’t like. That is a truism but it reveals the fact that though some people say they like change and others say they dislike change all people like and dislike change at some level. The change that is coming for those who have trusted Christ is “all things made new.” This new does not mean totally different. The first time God created the world and people to live in it he declared it “good.” The new heavens and new earth will be new but not totally dissimilar to this one. This is important to contemplate so that we will not see the life to come as weird and beyond our ability to even contemplate. How can you look forward to something that you cannot possibly get your mind even partially around? If the future is a blur, a sort of spiritual fog…with vague ideas, mostly from culture not Scripture, of floating around as disembodied spirits then no wonder we rarely think about it with anticipation. What is coming is new…all things made new…but what is coming is fully good and you will like it, you will like it a lot! Paul wrote that what is coming in the future for those who love God is beyond the human mind to comprehend on its on… “However, as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:9-10) But notice the fact that though the human cannot discover through reason or exploration what God alone can reveal has in fact been revealed to us. What we cannot know though unaided reason we can know through God’s revelation to us. As we look to Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, we can see glimpses now of the life we are to live then. His was and is a life of complete joy, power, and contentment. He lived a life of ongoing communion with God the Father. We have through the revelation of Jesus and the Scriptures the ability to “conceive” of what God has prepared for those who love him. Now it is important that you give energy and time to these mental concepts (thoughts of what is real) so that they will shape your hearts in the direction of God. What you cannot conceive on your own, you can now see because God has made it known to you.
Pray:
(Personalize this prayer today; make it specific to the circumstances that face you.)
Ask God to lead you through His Spirit as you go through your day. Ask Him to bring to mind the truth of the gospel and its implications for what you will encounter today. Tell Him “Yes” to His will and ask Him for His power and protection to live this “yes.” Ask God to create and reveal opportunities to proclaim the good news today.