Revelation 21
By Pastor Libby
Intro to Heaven 101
I enjoy reading. Reading takes me to faraway places and to situations that I as a simple Idaho girl may or may not encounter. I love reading a good mystery.
In Revelation 21 we are introduced to the mystery of a new heaven and a new earth. We are dazzled by the myriad of jewels and precious stones of the Holy City, Jerusalem. Something we will never see in this life but in the next. We are promised by God that he will make everything new. Nothing fictional in this reading, but something you and I will experience as heaven becomes real for us.
John 14:1-3 says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, trust also in me. In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you. I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”
Yes it will be sad to leave what we know behind in death or in the second coming, yet there are many things John relates to us in this passage that I will gladly embrace. In heaven there will be no more crying, no more pain, fear will not be present there.
Many fictional books and movies have been written that endeavor to tell us and scare us into believing that the last days, should be approached with fear and trembling. I still remember in sixth grade uncontrollably sobbing on the night I was to leave Salina, Kansas for a new life in Oregon, right after we had watched during the Sunday night Service the end times movie, “Thief in the Night.” I definitely couldn’t sleep that night or the next! I can’t tell you how right or wrong these things are in their interpretations, but I can tell you that Christ is not the author of fear. When I read Revelation 21 I am filled with hope and longing to see Jesus. Is your name “written in the Lamb’s book of life?” My prayer is that it is and that one day there will be a great celebration in your honor as you enter those pearly gates and claim your room!
