Good morning,
Surrounded by strength
John was just a simple fisherman cleaning his nets when Jesus came along and invited him to become a follower and a fisher of men. He went everywhere with Jesus and the rest of his disciples during the three years that Jesus walked here on earth. John was with Jesus when he hung on the cross and Jesus asked John to take Mary, his mother, into his home after his death. John was the first disciple to see the empty tomb three days later and then to see him alive again the first day after his resurrection. John was there the day Jesus was taken back into heaven and spend the rest of his life serving his Savior and Lord. John wrote four of the books of the New Testament and was known as the Apostle of love. Near the end of his life he was forced to live on a small island as punishment for his love for Jesus. While he was there, Jesus came to him to tell him what was going to happen in the future. Jesus came in his heavenly power and authority and talked about seven churches and what was going on in each of them. Then something totally surprising happened. He looked up at heaven and saw a door open and heard, “Come up here, and I will show you what must happen after this.”(Rev.4:1)Jesus showed John what was happening in heaven then and what would happen for the rest of time for our earth.
What Jesus showed him then, is just what we need to know now, as those of us in God’s family are seeing and feeling the hate and anger and strength of what is happening in our world today. One of the first things he saw was Jesus as the Lamb of God who was given authority to be in control of what was going on in heaven and the earth. Then he heard and saw something very important for us to remember when we begin to feel overwhelmed with the challenges we are facing today. I heard the voices of thousands and millions of angels around the throne and of the living beings and the elders. And they sang in a mighty chorus: “Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered—to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing.”(Rev.5 11,12) Then John heard something that we also baldly need to remember. And then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea. They sang:“Blessing and honor and glory and power belong to the one sitting on the throne and to the Lamb forever and ever.”(v.13) Not only is the Lord God All Powerful, a huge company of angels and has been bringing people into his family from everywhere in the world. Later on he was shown another huge crowd of people, too great to count, from every nation and tribe and people and language, standing in front of the throne and before the Lamb.(Rev.7:9) John tells us, they were shouting with a great roar, “Salvation comes from our God who sits on the throne and from the Lamb!”(v.10) And then he heard the angels singing, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and strength belong to our God forever and ever! Amen.”(v/12) John saw a lot more of what would be happening to the end of time, but what we need to keep remembering now is that our enemy is doing his best to get us to feel alone and weak and powerless in an overwhelming world. Satan wants us to forget that we have an eternal Savior and God who has all the power needed to carry out his plans for all of time and then for the rest of eternity. We may be weak, but our Savior is strong. We may be overwhelmed, but never out of range of our Father God who is always with us and is lovingly guiding us into eternity.
Revelation 7 12 They sang, “Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and strength belong to our God forever and ever! Amen.”
Roy Wisner
