TODAY’S SCRIPTURE Revelation 21

In your home, on your laptop, tablet, or smartphone, and in the cloud, you may have a variety of pictures of your loved ones or places you have visited. You probably have pictures that you consider as favorites.

Revelation 21:2 records that the apostle John “saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” I can remember how anxious I was to see my bride when the doors of the church auditorium opened with her standing arm in arm with her father. My favorite picture of Heaven is that of a bride decorated and beautified for her groom.

God presents many images of Heaven in Revelation 21, any one of which might be your chosen representation of Heaven. As a matter of fact, your preferred depiction of Heaven might change over time and be related to your circumstances in this temporal existence. If this is a time of intense sorrow or hurt in your life, the image of a heavenly Father wiping away “every tear from [your] eyes” and Heaven being a place without mourning, crying or pain may be what you most desire to experience. Since you live in a world where you are surrounded by sin and broken relationships, you may thirst most for the reflection of Heaven as the place where iniquity does not exist and relationships are all that they should be. The more intimacy you develop in your relationship with God, the more you might value in your heart the interpretations of Heaven being filled with the glorious radiance of God and being a place of security and peace. If this is a time when the darkness of life feels overwhelming, you may cling to the fact that Heaven is filled with the light of God and that Heaven is a place that never knows night.

Whatever your preferred picture of Heaven might be, Heaven is a place reserved for those whose names “are written in the Lamb’s book of life” (Revelation 21:27). Is your name recorded there?

Today, I will…consider the various Biblical images of Heaven and recommit to responding appropriately and appreciatively to the grace of God. I will thank and praise God for writing my name in the Lamb’s Book of Life.