In the last 14 days, I have flown 3,316 miles, driven 1,935 miles, spoken 10 ten times and picked up a van full of kids at Camp Blue Haven. It is has been an exciting, exhilarating, draining, fulfilling time!
Summertime always seems to be overload time, especially in the ministry. There are a myriad of opportunities for spiritual growth, faith formation and friendship and while it is exhausting, it is all worth it!
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One of the downfalls of my recent trips is the fact that in the last 14 days, I have only seen Trae and Tori for a total of 12 hours (and 8 of those hours were spent sleeping). I am missing my girls like crazy and looking forward to tomorrow night when they return home.
They’ve been in Arkansas, visiting grandparents, adopted grandparents and friends. Mandy tells me they’ve had a blast but I can’t wait for them to come back tomorrow!
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Tomorrow, my sermon is about the way things really are in this world in which we live. Too often, we Christians fall in love with this world and the trappings of this world. Too often, singing the words “This World is not Home” rings a strange chord because this world does feel like home.
But we forget that this world is the temporary punishment place of Satan.
Revelation 12 is a unique, apocalyptic story of Satan’s attempt to destroy the covenant people of God. With the covenant people of God protected from Satan’s onslaught, Satan shifted strategies and attempted to destroy the male child birthed by the covenant people of God – an apocalyptic reference to Jesus. Revelation 12 paints a furious Satan chasing Jesus right up to the gates of heaven at his ascension, attempting mightily to destroy him. But Satan’s efforts proved futile. God banished Satan to the earth, where Satan is “filled with fury.” And his fury is unleashed at the offspring of the covenant people of God. Who is that? You and me.
We live in a world that doesn’t work right. Sin has introduced complications into the world. Satan, as the “prince of this present age” roams the earth looking for children of God to devour. Disease is prevalent. Poverty is rampant.
But don’t think for a minute that because Satan is winning a few battles on this earth that he will ultimately win the war! The good news of Revelation 12 is that his doom is sure and the covenant people of God triumph in the end, because of their connection to the blood of the Lamb.
Give Revelation 12 a read this weekend and allow its message to fill you with understanding and hope. Revelation 12 helps us to see and understand the way things really are and infuses us with hope about the way things will ultimately turn out.
