Daily Bible Reading – December 31, 2021

December 31 (Daily reading: Revelations 19-22) Congratulations on chronologically reading the Bible in 2021. Thank you for your faithfulness in reading these commentaries. In 19:6-10, John wrote, “These are the true words of God.” We sing with the great multitude: “Hallelujah! For the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigns.” These chapters complete the amazing images of heaven as revealed to John, including “the marriage of the Lamb…and His bride (the Church).” John was instructed: “Write: ‘Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding feast of the Lamb.’” I am stricken with spiritual atrial fibrillation; i.e., my heart races at the thought that I, as a believer in Christ, am invited to this eternal feast!

(21:1-6) John “saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.” A loud voice proclaimed that God Himself will be among His people: “And He will wipe away every tear from their eyes; and there will no longer be any death; there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain; the first things have passed away.” Considering my wife Judy’s struggle with Alzheimer’s, I rejoice in Dr. Benjamin Mast’s words: “And no forgetting!” (“Second Forgetting,” Zondervan, 2014, 26).

Jesus, sitting on His throne, identified Himself as “the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end.” He offered water to the thirsty from “the spring of the water of life.” John also wrote that he saw no temple in heaven, “for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.” There was no need of any outside source of light, “for the glory of God has illuminated it, and its lamp is the Lamb” (21:22-23). We can only say with John: “Amen. Come, Lord Jesus.” I close these devotional commentaries with the final words of scripture: “The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen” (22:20-21).

– Al Gary


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