In trying times, here comes God’s power

Every day we're reading or listening to part of the Bible together and sharing thoughts with you. Today it’s Bern Leckie:

What did I like about today’s passage?

This book was written to a suffering church. Their crisis was maybe worse than we can imagine, as Jesus’ followers were being blamed for everything wrong in the Roman Empire. The world’s leaders made sure they were cruelly tortured and relentlessly persecuted as a result. For anyone who had joined Jesus’ new way of life to feel good about a message of love, these were incredibly challenging times. Did they believe Jesus? Was it worth it?

I love that God’s intervention here, though packed with warnings, drama and memorably weird detail, feels comforting to me because it recaps his big story, the one about where we and the world are heading. Spoiler alert - good beats evil. Jesus unmistakably calls us and everyone we know to join him on the good side in a new life, “freed from our sins” and ready for wonders we can scarcely imagine. And even if you can imagine a lot, get ready…

I used to read Revelation as if it were a timetable for the future. In some ways, it still is, as it points to an end time “every eye will see” which has not yet happened. But what was the point of telling suffering Christians about events thousands of years in the future? Is that the whole point of what the Spirit is doing here, to reassure that all will be well in a long time?

Two things strike me about the way Revelation opens. One is that it is strange and glorious. Whether we understand all the bits or not, I think everyone who reads or hears this can get that God’s amazing power is bigger, brighter and more powerful than what currently troubles us. So while the battle still rages, we can know God’s awesome presence now.

The other thing I notice is the immediacy of Jesus’ call to the churches to repent – change their minds – where unhelpful teaching, examples and practice had crept in. It sounds to me like a lot of challenge for a suffering church! But they are not alone in facing this challenge. The whole point is that they have new life in the Spirit which overcomes massive challenge.

What did it show me about Father God, Jesus or the Holy Spirit?

God has incredible power and a view on our past, present and future which we cannot fully share from our limited perspective. He also has a plan to defeat evil which involved Jesus first, defeating death on our behalf, so that we can also get involved without fear of death.

What am I going to do differently as a result?

Right now, I’m more struck by my need to spend time in awe than understanding it all. But I also want to be more ready to repent and lose the limited grasp I think I have on God’s power when he really wants to grasp me and the rest of us with it instead.

Who am I going to share this with?

Our online house group enjoys prophetic pictures and visions, and there might be none bigger than this! We should consider together how God might be speaking freshly in it.