I am using the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.

Today, I am reading and commenting on Revelation 20-22.

    John describes the Final Judgment that will happen when history truly does come to an end. When that happens all people will stand before God and be judged. On that day each and every one of us will be judged on what we have done (and have not done). Those whose names are not written in the Book of Life will be thrown into the Lake of Fire. Now the interesting thing here is that the Book of Life is a separate book from the rest of the books which record our actions. When that day comes, all that we have ever done will be laid out for everyone to see. On that day, none of us will be able to say, “I was good enough to get into Heaven.” However, we will be judged on what we have done. It may be that our faith in Christ will allow us into Heaven, but if we have not done the works which God called us to do we will be subject to judgment for that failure. We are given a list of those who will not be allowed into Heaven. If we choose to continue in those behaviors after we have been washed clean by Jesus’ blood, we will not inherit God’s Kingdom.

    But for those who do remain faithful to the end, there is a promise. When that day comes, God will personally comfort each and every one of us. He will wipe away our tears and in that place there will be no more death, or sorrow, or crying, or pain. All of that will pass away along with this world and we will be in the presence of God forever. When I think of this scene I think of those times when we have been at an event where everybody (or almost everybody) there was there to spend time with the same person. They all (or most of them, any way) felt that that person was the one who made this particular event fun. The problem is always that that person is there to have fun and, even if they want to make sure that everyone has a good time, they only have so much time and cannot be with everyone there. Heaven is like that, except that God does have the time and ability to be with everyone there and make sure that they have a good time. And the wonderful thing about it is that if you desire to be with God he invites you to join Him, no matter what you have done in the past, no matter how you have been hurt in the past. God has one word for those who have suffered (and we have all suffered to one degree or another), that word is “Come.” Then when we have come to Him, He sends us back out into the world to tell those who are still suffering that He is inviting them. He sends us out to say to others what He said to us, “Come.” Let us do our best to show them what Heaven will be like by wiping the tears from their eyes and comforting them in the same way that God comforts us.