Personally, I find that no other book in Scripture is quite like Revelation, simultaneously bringing up questions and curiosity right alongside the deepest sensations of hope, trust, and assurance. There is a settling exhale that happens when you turn the final page. It doesn’t come with a list of answers to all the questions that have been jotted in the margins. Instead, Revelation offers wisdom, insight, and hope for God’s people so we know how to live with the end of the story in mind. This is not a fuzzy hope for the distant future; Revelation brings the kingdom of heaven into our everyday lives and asks us how we will respond.

I don’t have many guarantees for your journey through this book of the Bible. You might find the finish line of your study has tied up some bows for you. Or you might find you have a whole different set of questions than the ones you began with! You might even find the journey wasn’t as scary as you thought it would be. But I do know this: It will be worth it.

Remember where you’re heading, and ask the Holy Spirit to give you glimpses of the greater story at hand. Beyond all of the imagery and poetry and prophecy—all part of Revelation’s beautiful and intricate tapestry—we are prompted to direct our gaze toward the throne of the only One who is worthy. He is the same one who is the Firstborn of all creation. The same one born in human flesh. The same one who walked dusty roads with fickle disciples and made His way to die on a cross outside Jerusalem. The same one who rose from the dead and now sits at the right hand of the Father. This is Jesus—the Son of God, the Alpha and Omega, the Lion of Judah, the King of kings, and the Lord of lords. And He is coming again.

Yet in the person of Jesus—the very Son of God made flesh—everything was different. His glory was displayed in ways that were counterintuitive to our understanding of fame and glory. He received a crown, but it was made of thorns. He had the praises of the people, but they quickly turned to reproach. He chose the most unlikely places and circumstances to put His glory on display.

It was in the midst of a rather ordinary wedding celebration that Jesus first displayed His glory in a public miracle. It was His mother who gave Him the nudge to do what only He could do. The wedding hosts had run out of wine. Mary probably didn’t want them to be embarrassed by this, so she went straight to the One who had unlimited resources. He didn’t gather the crowds. He simply told the servants to start filling jars with water.

Sometimes I go looking for God’s glory in high and lofty places. I wait for that experience in a church service that gives me goose bumps or some particularly holy moment. Yet I am reminded in this scene that even something as simple as water can testify to His glory, and any moment can be made holy in the hands of Jesus Christ.

Those in closest proximity to Him got to witness it. It was the servants, carrying that first glass of water-becoming-wine, who got the first glimpse of the miracle. Jesus didn’t stand up in the temple and perform. His glory was let loose right in the middle of a dinner party. Stone jars became holy vessels, and servants got the front row seat. None of it was the fanfare of royalty. In fact, most of the partygoers didn’t even know Jesus performed a miracle.

Of course, He was doing far more than making new wine. While the party guests and disciples certainly celebrated with glad hearts (Psalm 104:15), Jesus would soon reveal the ways that He had come to make all things new (Jeremiah 31:12–14).

Let’s not forget, however, that His miracles are never just for the sake of putting on a show. When God’s glory is revealed—either in grand and glorious ways or in the unassuming ways that are often His habit—it’s always to call people to believe and trust in Him. And that is exactly what the disciples did.

He revealed his glory, and his disciples believed in him.
—John 2:11

May this miracle foster in our hearts a posture of belief as we behold His glory revealed to us. After all, we await the even greater wedding feast when we will behold His glory in full (Revelation 19:6–9).

Yet, even though many of my people aren’t just down the street, I have experienced such love and care from them from many miles away. Sure, it’s easier to stay in touch with the myriad of ways to be connected these days. But it still takes intentionality and effort to do so.  

I can’t help but think about the experience Paul might have had shepherding several groups of fellow Christians, even from afar. The letters of Philippians and Colossians are just two glimpses into his pastoral care and affection for these communities of believers. One of them—the church in Philippi—he knew well because Paul himself had established it. Yet for the church in Colossae, he never got to be with them in person. Paul writes that he had deep affection for both, even if they connected differently due to distance and time. But at the heart of his letters, we see that he really wanted the same for all of them: to know more of God and the goodness of His gospel. He wanted it to sink into every nook and cranny of their lives.

That’s also what we want for you as you spend the next four weeks reading through these New Testament letters. May these words, written so long ago to a people far away, be good news for you here and now. Read Paul’s words like you would any timely words of encouragement from a dear friend, gathering the truth to encourage, challenge, and propel you today.

Looking forward was overwhelming. And so unclear. But when I had shoved all my belongings into a storage unit for an undetermined period of time, I made sure to grab the last few years’ worth of prayer journals. I would just read and reread them, scouring them for all the evidence I could find that this wasn’t going to be the time that God left me out to dry. Because almost on a daily basis, that lie would creep in. What if this is the time He doesn’t come through? What if I made the wrong choice? What if I just flounder, never really finding the future God has for me?

Thankfully, several people in the Bible, just like Abraham, also faced this seemingly universal reality of uncertain futures. They too needed kind and consistent reminders from the past. We see in their stories how remembrance brings the past reality of who God is and what He has done to bear in the present. To let it inform how we respond, live, repent, and walk with God. Reading those old journals and remembering the Scripture that had been so pivotal in earlier seasons became part of the way I could cling to past promises that were still true. I needed to recall the specific ways I had seen God’s character play out in my life. I needed to remember so I would not forget. 

Difficult seasons have a way of tempting us to forget the truth—to forget that God’s promises are still true. We question God’s loyalty when we can only see the brokenness in front of us or the uncertainty of what is to come. And it’s in those moments we need reminders like Abraham, that God has been faithful to His promises, and that will still be true in our most uncertain of days. 

So, may the Lord bring to your mind what has been and remains true of Him: the universal and unique ways you have seen Him remain true to His character. And may you be reminded of this truth: He has never forgotten us.

Every January, I follow the turn of a new calendar year by rereading the Gospel of John. It has become a familiar and needed liturgy for me, and every time I arrive at these words in the first chapter, I pause—usually with a lump in my throat. Perhaps it is the seemingly clean slate of a new year that reminds me of the perfect sacrifice Christ became on my behalf and how I’m still desperately in need of it. Or maybe it’s the relief of knowing my record of sin is truly and completely taken away. 

Those things are certainly true. Yet I think they catch me because I can picture this scene so vividly. John the Baptist had been peppered with questions about his ministry and his role in relationship to the coming Messiah, but he knew his life was always going to be like a flashing neon sign pointing to the one who was coming to rescue humanity forever. And I can almost feel the dust kicking up from the road as he looks up to see Jesus walking toward him. 

“Look!”

Finally. He’s here. The one who is fully what we need. The one God’s people had been waiting for. 

I can’t help but find some similarities to this time and space we call Advent. Longing and looking and waiting only to look up and see what we have been waiting for, finally here. But the baby in the manger would grow to be a man who had a long, hard road ahead of Him, one that culminated in His becoming our full, final, and completely sufficient sacrifice on the cross. That’s what makes it perfect—He is the only one who is enough. His is the blood that would finally do what the blood of bulls and goats never could. He is the sacrifice that ended the need for spotless lambs year after year. His is the offering for sin that finally covered all of our brokenness.

Holidays don’t do away with our needs, hurts, desires, and regrets. Sometimes all the festivity and shiny bows just make all of it flood to the surface. But Jesus does meet us right there in the midst of it all. As if He were walking up to John, He comes straight to us. Whether we were actually looking for Him or looking to anything else that might be good enough, He comes to us. His life for ours. His sacrifice for our freedom. His blood is our sufficient covering and cleansing. As we move closer and closer to the culmination and celebration of Christmas Day, may you sit a little longer today in anticipation, looking and longing for the only one who is enough.

Seventy years after Solomon’s temple was destroyed. 

Twenty-three years after Cyrus decreed and funded the rebuild. 

About twenty years after the foundation was laid. 

And about four years after the building began again after being interrupted. 

With many doubts, discouragements, and outright opposition along the way, the people were finally able to dedicate this new house of God. At last, there would once again be a place for God’s people to remember and relearn what it is to worship Him alone. 

I’m sure many of the Israelites wondered if the day would ever come. Would they ever stand in the place that God had ordained for His presence to dwell? Few people would have still been alive who had seen the first temple since seventy years had passed since its destruction. So for most, it was a completely new experience to stand in the house of God. 

Of course, as I read about this dedication of the second temple in the book of Ezra, I can’t help but look back to the first temple dedication that we read in the 1 Kings account. To be sure, much was different about the dedication in Ezra’s account than Solomon’s earlier temple and ceremony. There were fewer sacrifices, and the building was certainly smaller. Overall the festivities were not quite as grand.. A divided kingdom, exile, and a long-awaited return separated these two celebrations. But one thing remained the same: This was an occasion marked with great joy. 

The Israelites, including the priests, the Levites, and the rest of the exiles, celebrated the dedication of the house of God with joy. 
—Ezra 6:16

After everything the exiles had been through—joy! Perhaps even more joy because of the journey it had taken to stand where they stood. And even for all the differences of this second temple, it was a representation of God’s presence among His people. And for that, they could celebrate with deep, sincere joy. 

The joy of the returned exiles was echoing the joy of Solomon, celebrating because not one of God’s promises had failed (1Kings 8:56). It’s why Solomon stood and dedicated a house to God. And generations later, after that temple had been destroyed and God’s people exiled, they stood on a new foundation and dedicated a new temple to the same God of the same promises. He still had not failed. His promises were still true. And because God was still faithful, the people stood and offered back to Him what He alone had promised and provided. And they did so with great joy. 

Now picture gathering in a friend’s main room with other believers. It’s a room full of brothers and sisters in Christ who have different backgrounds, wounds, experiences, and convictions than you, but the same faith. Your group has gotten word from a faithful leader who has been doing gospel work in cities far and wide. Paul, the persecutor-turned-radical disciple, has sent a letter to the believers in Rome. So you gather together to hear what he has to say. And sitting there, in a room of women, men, slaves, Roman citizens, immigrants, and poor and wealthy believers, a faithful benefactor and sister in the faith, Phoebe, shares with you all words of rich, gospel reminders. 

Where we might read Romans today as a robust theological treatise, full of ten dollar spiritual words, the Christians in Rome would have experienced this letter from Paul as practical encouragement born out of theological truth. The diverse gatherings of believers in Rome had challenges, just like any church of its day or ours. Jewish and Gentile Christians weren’t on the same page about how their faith played out in practice. Did the Gentiles have to conform to the law? How were both groups going to coexist with different understandings of how to live out their faith?

Paul’s words of encouragement about the salvation and grace of Jesus Christ are a reminder that even the most unlikely people can experience radical unity. We discover in Romans that, when we keep the main things the main things, those differences don’t have to divide us. The points on which we build our faith are the aspects that unify us. After all, every one of us is a former prisoner who has been set free because of Christ. All who claim Jesus for salvation stand in His righteousness, His sacrifice, and His grace extended to unworthy sinners. 

So come to the book of Romans with fresh eyes for the journey ahead. Imagine what it would have been like to sit and hear Phoebe share these words from Paul of grace, truth, and challenge from Paul. Remember in this reading of Romans the good news for you that is the gospel of Jesus—the freedom and new life that we get to live out because of it. I pray it sinks into our bones, informing and infusing every corner of our lives as we walk in faith. 

As we reach the final chapter of genealogies in 1 Chronicles (way to go!), we catch up to God’s people during a similar kind of fresh start. 

All of the genealogies up to this point have been leading us here. Chronicles has the whole of the Old Testament in view with these nine chapters of genealogies. The Chronicler has leveraged all of history to tell the story of God’s people from creation until the exiles’ return to the land God had given them. Just as God had been faithful from the beginning, the Chronicler would remind God’s people that He would also be faithful to another promise—to rebuild this faithful remnant. They weren’t lost forever. They weren’t without hope. 

Many inhabitants returned to the towns and provinces outside of Jerusalem, while some people stayed in the city to protect it from attack and serve in the temple. The people listed here in chapter 9 were those who began setting down roots; the people who would lay down the foundations of a new temple, rebuild the center of worship, and eventually rebuild the city walls. 

Each of these people who returned are testifiers to God’s faithfulness—their lives another chapter in the long legacy of God’s people. This is what the Chronicler has been holding up as a reminder of the past, and how this group is both physically and spiritually laying the foundations of a new future. 

Having looked back, we will now turn toward a more detailed account of Israel’s history, as the author of Chronicles draws them down through the years of King David’s promised kingship, Solomon’s faithful building of the temple, the dividing of God’s kingdom, and the myriad of kings and their varying degrees of faithfulness. 

With all the ups and downs, the people of God—both then and now—are called to remember the faithfulness of God at every turn and His unmatched ability to restore and renew the lost and broken places and seasons of our lives. 

So, I’m not sure what you are bringing into this season of Lent. I’m not sure what kind of fresh start you are praying for on the other side of Resurrection Sunday. But I do know this: If you belong to Christ, then you are an heir to all of His promises (Galatians 3:29). You have been woven into the very history of His people that we spent this week reading. You also have a hope and future because God is faithful to His promises. 

She went at midday, so we can probably assume she avoided the more crowded morning and evening times. Nevertheless, she needed water, so even if she wanted to avoid the man already there, she had to get what she went for. 

But Jesus knew what she’d long been looking for (spoiler: it wasn’t actual water), and He also knew all the ways she had tried to find it herself. He knew all the places she had run trying to satisfy the deepest desires of her heart, all the other proverbial wells she had visited for respite. As He stood, telling her about living water, she was still missing the full extent of what He was offering. If she knew, she might never settle for less than that again. 

“If you knew the gift of God, and who is saying to you, 
‘Give me a drink,’ you would ask him, 
and he would give you living water.” 
—John 4:10

Jesus’s interaction with this Samaritan woman offers us such a vivid picture of what we are reflecting on this Advent season. All of us are longing for something. Stability. Love. Fulfillment. Comfort. Relief. We have desires for those longings to be satisfied, those dreams to become reality. And I would venture to guess that some of those feel like a “not yet” for you. But the beauty of Jesus’s first coming as a baby in Bethlehem is that we have a Savior who has come near to us, right in the midst of our deepest desires. He has seen us, and He has come close, offering us living water when we didn’t even know that’s what we needed. 

Just as Jesus offered an unlikely woman what she really needed (but maybe not what she thought she wanted), He offers you and me the same thing. And in offering it to us, we get to offer it to the world. Because only God knows what the world is longing for and who they really need. Only He knows the desire of every nation—of men and women down the street and around the world. He knows that we are all prone to look in the wrong places and to the wrong people to satisfy what we really desire. Just like the outcast Samaritan woman looking for water, we, too, are looking for something more. We are dry and thirsty, and yet we are quick to settle for the closest water source that will leave us thirsty all over again. 

So this Advent season, may you drink deeply from the wellspring of life—the very spirit of God.

Yet, somewhat miraculously, reading these words of invitation from Jesus in Matthew 11 opens up the space for me to take a deep breath. Because, as it turns out, I don’t just need rest from a busy schedule or to-do lists or being an introvert around people all the time (though, I certainly do)I need a rest that settles far more deeply into my bones. I need rest from the work of trying to prove my own worth and earning a place in God’s family and trying to live up to the standards that Christ has already fulfilled on my behalf. 

I need rest from the work that was never mine in the first place. 

As He ministered and shared the gospel, Jesus knew the burden that so many carried, not only from the pains of a broken world, but also from the weight of religion and legalism. He knew how the religious leaders of His day had strapped restraints onto the people, a yoke that left them weighed down and weary. Have you ever felt that way? Working hard to be a good Christian can be exhausting when we are trying to earn our way to God—when we think it is all on our shoulders.

What good news indeed these words of Jesus offer us: Rest. Soul rest. Because He has taken on the work of salvation. He has already borne that burden for us. There is an unburdening that happens when we come to Jesus if we are willing to relinquish the tight grip of control on our lives. Here we are not promised easier circumstances or fewer responsibilities. But we are offered green pastures in His presence (Psalm 23:2). We are promised the tender care and affection of our Shepherd who has laid down His life for us (John 10:11). We are tethered to the one who can actually stand up under the weight that crushes us (Matthew 11:29).

I don’t know what your soul is weary of in this season. Be it uncertainty, fear, loss, doubt, disappointment, loneliness, or the sheer exhaustion of just trying to keep up the performance, hear the sweet and tender invitation of Jesus today who wants to bear that load and actually restore your soul in the process. May you indeed find your soul’s rest in Him.