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Jesus said to her, I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies John 11:25 |
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| Archived Manna: | |
Dear
Friend,
If you do not already have a habit of gathering daily manna the first thing in the morning (we can look at the example given to us in Exodus 16 and find the pattern for make it a habit. Establish your life and your schedule to allow you the necessary time to do your daily collection first thing every morning to give you the strength to make it through the day. And remember that today’s manna will not be sufficient for tomorrow; tomorrow’s manna must be collected tomorrow morning. Tuesday, April 29, 2025
Today's Passage : Today'sPassage:Heaven BibleVerse:Revelation 7:9-17 "After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.” Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, “Who are these, clothed in white robes, and from where have they come?” I said to him, “Sir, you know.” And he said to me, “These are the ones coming out of the great tribulation. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” “Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits on the throne will shelter them with his presence. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat. For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” " Message:
The Revelation of St. John the Divine, known simply as Revelation or Book of Revelation, is perhaps the most difficult book in the Bible for many Christians. Comparatively few people read it, and probably most Christians are wary of it, because of the elaborate weird imagery describing the Second Coming of Christ.
To say that Revelation is an “apocalypse” just adds to the confusion, because few people understand what the word actually means. Apocalypse means “revelation” — the lifting of a veil or curtain, so that something previously unseen can be seen. It usually refers to a prediction of the end of an era and the beginning of a new one.
rider with harp on dragon
The narrow meaning of “apocalypse” that most people have — a violent and frightening end of the world — really originated from the Book of Revelation itself! But one could as easily call Daniel apocalyptic, or even the more prosaic works of someone like Marshall McLuhan, the man who coined terms like “the global village” and “the information age” to describe the great changes in society we have been seeing in the past 50 years.
Today’s Bible passage describes heaven. It depicts the relationship of everyone who has been saved by Jesus Christ to God, after the Day of Judgment. It was likely much more popular in ancient times, when people wanted a literal, concrete description of what eternity would be like. In places, metaphors from the teachings of Christ become concrete images, such as the “springs of the water of life.”
One particularly helpful image is John’s description of “the blood of the Lamb.” This rather gory concept is often embraced by very fervent Christians but somewhat disturbing to others; John actually tones the imagery down, by showing us that this blood is just a figurative expression for the sacrifice made by Christ and that washing a robe in it, rather than being gory, is a process that will turn the robe white. Figuratively, the “blood” is a bleach, one that is so powerful it removes the stain of sin entirely.
So those who have been saved by their belief in Christ, a countless multitude from every nation, are dressed in perfect white robes. This is a visual metaphor for the grace of Christ, which removes the wages of sin from our souls and leaves us in perfect innocence — represented by a perfect, snowy white robe — so that we will be acceptable to stand before God.
In the final paragraph, John gives us a lovely bit of poetry, words of comfort and peace to describe how a time awaits us, when all our suffering will end. This too is apocalypse, even though a marked change from the mass of terrifying imagery that characterizes Revelation. For a curtain is lifted to show us that all will change; pain will end, and God will give us perfect happiness.
Meditation : Prayer : Now, to God the Father, who first loved us, and made us accepted in the Beloved; to God the Son, who loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood; to God the Holy Ghost, who sheds the love of God abroad in our hearts, be all love and all glory in time and to all eternity. Amen. |
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