A DEVOTIONAL THOUGHT by Pastor Phil
It has struck me that I and most people I know often focus on the wrong things. I can focus, sometimes even fixate, on the things that are going wrong in the world. Politics—broken. Race relations—broken. Labor relations—broken. International cooperation and collaboration—broken. Gender relations, marriage relations, generational relations, relationships period—broken. I could go on and on and on. The world is broken.
We can’t even agree on what is broken. What one person sees as broken another person sees as progress.
We live in a broken world, so it’s easy to focus on the brokenness. And that leads to discouragement, depressions, complaining, anger, and hopelessness, which only adds to the brokenness of the world.
And then come these words.
“After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said, ‘Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.’” Revelation 4:1
The book of Revelation has a lot of weirdness in its symbology, but the message is remarkably simple if we focus on the right things. However, it has struck me that we tend to focus and even fixate on the wrong things.
The book of Revelation is very honest about the brokenness of the world at that time (see the first three chapters) and what was to come. The book's message about the world is bleak, violent, cruel, and frightening and that’s where we tend to focus when we read Revelation—on all the horrible things it describes happening on earth. In the same way, we focus on the brokenness that we are experiencing around us.
However, that’s not the point or purpose of the book of Revelation. The purpose can be summed up in these three words, “Come up here.”
Again, and again and again, God, through the book of Revelation draws our attention back from the brokenness of earth to the glory of heaven.
God, is using Revelation to encourage the suffering believers who were the original readers of the book of Revelation, and to encourage every generation of believers since. God is saying, “Yes, things are a mess on earth and will worse, but that’s not the entire reality. Come up here! Things are doom and gloom on earth. It looks like Christianity is being crushed, but come up here!" God is drawing our focus back to heaven where God IS on the throne. Where justice will be done. Where worship is not just sung politely, but is shouted.
Where is your focus? Where is mine?
Focus on earth and it will be doom and gloom, and complaining, and fear and anger, which only adds to the brokenness.
Focus on heaven. Focus on God Almighty. Focus on the coming new heaven and earth. Shout “To him who sits on the throne and to the Lamb be praise and honor and glory and power, for ever and ever!” (Revelation 5:13). When you do, when I do, my attitude changes, my demeanor changes, my responses change, my language changes. Rather than giving in or giving up, rather than complaining, blaming, or condemning, I join my crucified Savior in loving this broken world and its broken people so that they may be redeemed and resurrected by Christ and start focusing on heaven themselves.
Where is your focus?
“After this I looked, and there before me was a door standing open in heaven. And the voice I had first heard speaking to me like a trumpet said,
‘Come up here.”