“Nevertheless, don’t rejoice because the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.” Luke 10:20
Dear Jesus, thank you for calling us into your story of redemption, renewal, and restoration. Your kingdom could advance in any number of ways, but you are pleased to use us as the pen through which you are writing stories of salvation, liberation, and healing. We’re not just biding our time till heaven. We’re not just enduring the crazy, evil, and decay until we can “get out of here.” We are a part of your eternal plan to make all things new.
Your kingdom has come in part with your resurrection, and it will come in fullness at your return. Hallelujah and thank you. There is plenty of heartache to go around, but there are 10,000 more reasons to live with hope. If we could only see, hear, smell, and heart-engage with John’s vision of our coming life in the new heaven and new earth (Rev.21:1-22:6), we too would fall down in face-plant worship, whole-being peace, and joy-filled anticipation (Rev.22:8).
But Jesus—today, Saturday, January 27, 2024 and every day, we want to “hitch our rejoicing wagon” to the right “stallion”—to the source of the deepest, greatest, most circumstance-transcending joy. Jesus, thank you for writing our names in heaven. We may stop breathing, but we will never die. We may have doubts about a lot of things, but we don’t have to live with doubt about the life to come. Never less, always more, we want to rejoice that our names are written with the permanent ink of your indelible grace in the only book that matters. Thank. You. Jesus. So Very Amen.