11 “Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created.”

How intense it is to see the things of heaven revealed to us thru John. Christ calls John up into Heaven to bear witness to the things of His kingdom.

“Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.” 2 At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne.

John sees what no man has ever seen before his appointed time. Christ seated on the throne in all His Glory, Honor and Power. Thru John’s eyes we see and hear the sights and sounds of the things to come for those who are also called into Heaven. I am so excited to be in a place where I will be praising the one who paid my debt so that I would live forever in paradise. I look forward to the day when I will be a part of the greatest worship orchestra ever assembled giving praise, honor and glory to my King.

“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!”

11 “Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.”

11 “Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.”

By His will they (all things) existed! Everything that I know of exists because God willed it so; it didn’t just happen. He is all powerful and deserves unending praise. I can’t wait to be with everyone in heaven in that “boring” (to quote Pastor Bobby’s imitation) eternal worship service!

I have been to lots of worship concerts from Chris Tomlin to Jeremy Camp to Mercy Me to Phil Wickham to Revival Worship Nights and more. There are moments throughout every one of those nights where it feels like God stepped into the room and just the combination of the lyrics, the music, and everyone singing out their hearts gives you a glimpse into the fact that this is something way bigger than people being led in song. We are worshiping our Lord and Savior and He is loving it (if our hearts are in the right place). I cannot wait for the magnificent worship sessions that will take place in Heaven, where we will get to worship God in his presence and make a joyful noise like none that has ever been heard on this earth!!!

God is the creator and is therefore worthy of all! Why don’t we treat him this way all the time? I remember a sermon by Paul Washer who said the universe exists because God tells it to, stars burn and planets spin at God’s command, but when he tells us to go talk to our friends about Jesus we say “No!” It’s insanity, really. We need to constantly be refixing our thoughts on the one who is worthy!

This is pretty cool. Twenty four elders, who would seem to be high up as they sit in thrones around God, fall flat on their faces and throw their crows down to worship God. Worship in Heaven is going to be so intense, we are going to give Him the glory He deserves without restraint. We never see people flat on their faces at church, but in Heaven everyone will be praising God to the utmost extent. I can’t wait to be there were I will worship God without reservation among multitudes of people; but I also pray that I would be worshiping Him here without restraint as well because He is so worthy.

“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!”

WOW…the picture in this chapter is incredible! They describe Jesus as holy, holy, holy to emphasize even more how perfect God is: absolutely perfect. It says that they never cease praising day or night. I want my life now to have that description. That I would be someone who never ceases to praise God in the morning and in the evening!

And around the throne, on each side of the throne, are four living creatures, full of eyes in front and behind

Is this Bible or the sci-fi channel? Heaven is going to be more legit than legit. It will be completly amazing to see the four living creatures. I am so excited about what God has in store for me in eternity. I can never earn my way or doing anything to deserve a trip to heaven. So I am humbly thanking God for his abundant grace and mercy. His name will be glorified and I can’t wait to glorify his name in heaven. Maranatha!

This verse pumps me up. it is the way that i want to be totally living my life and the way that i want non christians to see what i am doing. i want to be praising God through all that i do and give myself fully to him. He is always there and will be there in the future. He died for me in the past, is with me always in the present, and will be interceeding for me in heaven. He is the greatest thing that has ever happened to me and i want to share that with others by inviting people to hear the good news at the bren center and letting everyone know what has changed my life forever

I cannot wait for the day when I get to see this for myself. One day, I will see, with my own eyes, the throne of heaven and Jesus seated on the throne. That thought boggles my mind. I can’t quite grasp it but I’m so excited for it to come. My reaction will be to fall on my face in worship because I am so unworthy. Seeing my Creator face to face will be the best day of my life. I cannot wait for that day!! Come quickly, O Lord!

If the Holiness of God is going to stand out to me when I am in heaven, then I want it to stand out to me about him now. I pray that I will see God in the splendor of his holiness and strive to be holy in my own life as one of his children.

DOES THIS GET ANYONE ELSE REALLY EXCITED FOR HEAVEN!?! I am soo stoked for heaven and how much worshipping we will be doing! I love having a book like Revelation that can tell us the future! Some people do not know how amazing heaven is going to be and I am so thankful that God has given me this so I know that I have something to look forward too! During my time here on earth, I need to be looking towards what is up in heaven and not get caught up in what everyone else is doing. I am going to be praying that I can store up my treasures in heaven and just focus on what I am going to be doing up there. I am going to be worshipping my Lord 24/7 in heaven and I also need to be doing that here on earth!! He is SOO worthy of all praise!
MARANATHA!!!

“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!”

This verse is awsome! even the most ferocious and giant of beasts worship God! I love it B/c the second part of the passage is part of a really awsome song :) I’m gonna praise God till my throat burns! and then some more ! :D

“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!”

This is awesomeness! These creatures praise God all the time never stopping. This is truly how awesome God is! All people want to do when they see him is praise him and proclaim how holy he is! When we go to heaven i bet everyone will be so overwhelmed with God that all we’ll want to do is praise him!

Reading this passage today made me realize how wrong my view of God is. The elders in this verse fall before him in humility, offering their complete worship to Him. The angels repeatedly worship him for his holiness. If I had a right view of the Lord, it would be reflected in the way I lived my life. When God’s glory is reveales to men in the Scriptures, they are completely overwhelmed by his holiness and their own sinfulness. I pray that I would obtain this sensitivity to my own sin, that I would see it in light of his holiness and truly hate it!

People wonder why we even praise God and why He deserves it. Well, we wouldn’t be here right now if it weren’t for Him! And, even after He made us, He killed His Son so that we could be reconciled to Him! I can’t wait for Heaven and worshiping Him forever and ever!

this is going to be so awesome in Heaven, being in awe of our Lord’s glory and worshipping him for saving us from what we deserve, hell. But instead we get to sing to the King of his power and mercy. There is no one like our God!

11 “Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.”

We were just talking about this at small groups last night!!! We were saying how awesome it will be to worship God and be before him!!! That is something I cannot fathom until the day I am there!!!! And I cannot wait for that day!!!!

MARANATHA

He is creator and we are the we are the creature, that is our relationship….it is Him who is worthy to recieve glory and honor and power! The only reason we excist is by his doing…we say without God we could never be saved, but without God we could never have excisted….if we praise God for salvation we must praise God for creation! We may think that we are strong, powerful, or incontrol but the truth is we aren’t even close…we are like puppets who move only by God’s grace. Each breath we breath is a breath that has been given to us. How awesome is our God!

I love reading passages and being like, “Hey! I know that verse! It’s in one of my favorite worship songs!”
It’s awesome :D

11 “Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.”

Um, AMEN!
To whom ELSE is this glory to be given to? No one!
No one had the power like God did to breathe life into every single living creature.
No one had the mind to create every single living (and dead, for that matter.) creature.
No one had the mercy to give all humans a second chance.
How great is our God, and how much does He deserve our praise?!
I want to shout this from the top of my LUNGS to all who have ears to hear it, because He is so much more than worthy.

This verse is so legit. It just goes to show how holy God is and just how unworthy we are. Even the twenty-four elders cast their crowns before the feet of the Lord. I can’t wait for the day that I get to bow before the Lord’s and worship Him.

This verse is very true. I am excited to be saying this in Heaven, but I will not wait till then. We should all be giving God the glory that He deserves. This is why we are here, and what we where made for.

11 “Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.”

I CANNOT wait until I am going to be worshipping Christ forever and ever! Reading this chapter just got me super pumped up and excited for heaven (: I have one word: MARANATHA!!!!!!!!!!!!

What an incredible chapter. As John is describing all the incredible things that he saw by the throne of God in heaven, it is amazing to hear about the types of things that will be there. In the midst of all of this, all the creatures and elders are worshipping the Lord by saying this! I can’t wait till the day I’m in heaven and get to participate in this incredible worship of my Lord! However, I want to be constantly worshipping God even here on earth, and giving him the glory for everything I do. I could not do anything without the strength he gives me!

“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!”

This song that we sing now has more meaning to me. I know where it came from, and i know the story behind it. I am stoked to sing this again, and think of all that i have read and learned in Revelation. Reading this book makes me so excited for heaven!

When I read this verse, it really made me sit and think of the time when I will stand before this awesome, powerful, holy God one day. Earlier in this passage it said that God’s throne was surrounded by “flashes of lightning and rumblings and peals of thunder!” Our God is so completely powerful and one day, I will be able to worship Him for it! I want to be in heaven with Him! I’m praying MARANATHA!

11 “Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.”

We are going to cast our crowns at the feet of the Lord… that’s everything I’ve ever tried to do to be a “good person”, an accomplishments I have, any compliments I’ve been given, and they all belong to Christ because he deserves ALL glory and honor and praise! Tonight I’m praying that I will give God the glory in every way in every chance I get!!

Wow! This is such a great reminder! We sing about this all the time.. “Unto the Lamb who sits on the throne be GLORY and HONOR and PRAISE.. ” We need to be liiving this out in our daily lives. I need to be living this out in my life. He created all things! He created me!! So why would my life be anything but glorifying to Him?!?!?! It just doesnt make any senseeeeeee.. I am going to pray that I will glorify God daily because He is worth all of my worship and all of my praise!! <3

The description of heaven is so euphoric and surreal, and to think not only will it be the most amazing thing any of us have ever seen, but it will be perfect there with no sin, and we will be in God’s presence for eternity. What a thing to look forward to!

More than any of His other attributes, the creatures of heaven are praising God’s holiness. They see Him as He truly is, and that is the one thing that stands out above everything else. Indeed, it is the cornerstone for all of God’s other attributes; for without God’s perfect holiness, he would not be just, and if He were not just He could not be loving by sending Jesus to die instead of judging us for our sin. I need to reflect more on this attribute of God, giving Him the praise and glory that he deserves! If the beings in heaven are praising His holiness, I should be as well!

It going to be so so so amazing when we get to worship Jesus in heaven for forever and ever! I cant comprehend thousands beyond thousands of people truely giving praise to God all at once. Its so amazing it can only happen in one place, and thats heaven. Heaven will truely be amazing. Some people are unsure of heaven becuase we will only be worshiping Jesus and doing nothing else. We will do other things, but if you truely understand the amazing power of God, that is all we will ever want to do. In Heaven and on earth. God deserves all my praise and everytime I worship, I need to be wholeheartedly worshiping Him. He deserves my praise!

“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!””

The creatures around the throne NEVER CEASED saying this phrase “holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty”. My life needs to be the same, that in my heart and mind, I would constantly be all about the Lord and his holiness, sadly though, it’s not because sometimes I sin and mess up and that distracts this mindset. I need to repent though of anything that distracts me from this and live out that phrase that cries out the holiness of our God.

Maranatha

I did not understand the last part of this verse at all(the seven spirits of God) so i looked it up in my study bible and here’s what I learned.
At that time there were seven major churches that the writer was most likely addressing. And spirits of God referring to the Holy Spirit with seven being the number of completeness, it was most likely referring to the fullness of the Holy Spirit. I liked this because recently in a bible study i go to on Mondays, I really learned who the Holy Spirit is. He is a “He,” not an “it.” He is GOD, part of the Holy Trinity and i have God in my soul!! How amazing is that?? What an honor! Was my first thought after “whoa!” because, i never thought of it that way, what kind of home is my heart to Him? Is it clean? or is it tainted by bad words, dirty jokes, thoughts that shouldn’t be in my head and things my heart wants or does say. This reeaallly made me think, I have the LORD in MY HEART!!!! And i hardly ever think about it, with such an honor bestowed upon me, i should be constantly praising the Lord and using this to spread His name further and stay strong! Because in John, Jesus says to His disciples before the Acsension that He must go in order to send the “Helper” to them, Praise the Lord for His wonderful gifts!!
MARANATHA!!!!!

Man this must have been sweet to hear. When I die I want to hear something like this. Passages like these make me want to serve the Lord more and more and hate this world more and more. Nothing here on earth can compare to heaven. Maranatha!!!!!!!!!!!!

This chapter and verse showed me how God deserves our praise because he is holy. Just to think about those creatures that have so many eyes and there job is to praise God since he is so holy. Those creatures reminded me at how creative God is and powerful God. The verse tells us about how God created all things and so give me peace that he has a plan and purpose for everything. I need to remember to praise God all the time.

We see all the things God does create, the blue skies, beautiful sunsets, and the complexity of the human body.

But I can’t help it do admire all the things God created and will create:
-space
-time
-the laws of science such as gravity

It bothers me when people say that God cannot exist because the laws of science disproves him. However, God was the one to create these laws of science. Furthermore, all scientific evidences points that there is a God. Wow!

The living creatures sing, “‘Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power.’”

Beautiful.

Wow! This verse is such a great reminder to me because it just really touches my heart that God chose to create me! To think that even before the earth was created, God said, “And i will create Emily.” Just the sense of knowing God chose me is so rewarding. Its also so crazy it is to think of how God created man. I mean think about all the complex things that have to be done to even create a human!!! Theres so much, and to think God did it all in a couple days!!! I dont now how people can walk outside and think this all came from an exploding star! I mean how does a star create a human from dirt? or a tree from a dog. There is only one belief that makes sense, God created everything!!!!!! :D

“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!”

This is a great verse because it expresses the utter majesty of our LORD JESUS CHRIST. All of the great people of the earth bow down at his feet and cry out how holy he is. I need to reflect on this aspect of GOD.

This is the ultimate portrait of sumbission to God and recognition of His glory, power, and honor. My life, this world, all blessings I receive–all of it comes from the Lord. Whenever I think about God, I should consider Him in all his majesty as John displays Him here. And whenever I hear anyone else disrespect my God and reduce Him in any way, I should be upset and be quick to defend His name and honor. It’s a great consolation to know that despite how many people in the world demean God, in the end every knee will bow, every tongue confess that God is our Lord and He is worthy.

Wow. This scripture was crazy. It’s so different from the life I know. It shows us how caught up we are in worldly things when we really should be praising God nonstop. What a thought! Nonstop, like never ending. The thought of eternity and FOREVER really scares me sometimes. When you stop to think about how we will NEVER STOP. We will be living in heaven FOREVER. It’s just so hard to fathom. It feels like there should be an end but there’s not…it just scares me. But if it were going to end at some point, what would happen then? And what is this world we live in? Ahhh ok I’m scaring myself.

God, I pray that you will fill me with peace. I am a human and cannot comprehend the thought of heaven existing forever and I can’t imagine all these things that are said to us in this chapter. Please forgive me, but I’m so used to this world I live in now that it’s hard to imagine living somewhere different. It’s so strange to me that we’ll have nothing to do other than serve you, which is awesome don’t get me wrong but it’s just so DIFFERENT! And isn’t the thing that causes people the most stress change? So this is like the biggest change ever. So I pray that you would set my mind at ease and that you would lead me to a scripture that could settle my distress a bit. Help me to continue to live every day of my life for YOU because as verse 11 says, you created us so we need to serve you! I appologize for the times I live for myself, I am a selfish human. So please send peace to me!

“’Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!’”

I can’t wait to be worshiping like the ones who are already in Heaven. I am so excited to be in Heaven so I can worship God while I can see Him and because there will be no sin and by-products of sin in it. I pray that we would all be Heavenly-minded or have kingdom-eyes so that we may focus on serving God on this earth.

While reading this, these verses just helped paint a beautiful picture of how awesome Heaven is going to be in my mind. But it also made me think that no matter how beautiful or perfect things/places can seem here on Earth, it will never come close in comparison to Heaven. It also made me think about how just the description of Heaven makes it seem so awesome but when we are actually there, it will be even more awesome! But while we are there, our main focus won’t be on stuff like this but instead it will be on the fact that we are in Heaven with our God worshipping Him directly! Just talking about this is getting my o so very excited! I can’t wait to be in Heaven with my God! MARANATHA!!!!!!!!!!!!

I like verse 11,“Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.””

I like this verse because it tells of the real reason why we were created. We were created to give GOD glory, honor, and power. I need to make sure that I do not lose focus on the task which is assigned to me. The way I can bring GOD glory is by doing as HE commands. I need to pray that I do not lose sight of my true purpose in life.

CYA

verse 1
‘After this I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven! And the first voice, which I had heard speaking to me like a trumpet, said, “Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after this.”’

Could you imagine God’s voice? It would be like music to my ears know that my almighty God is calling to me to come live with Him for all eternity. What an awesome feeling that will be.

This verse gives us just a glimpse of the absolute bombsauce worship sesh that is going on in heaven right now! I CANNOT wait to see Jesus Christ, and to worship Him forever and ever with all of my bros and sisters in Christ! Talk about an “amper-upper” of a verse! I am SO stoked to be singing praises to God forever! And God IS worthy of all of our praise! He is a holy God, even the perfect elders fall at His face, and they are without sin! God is a gracious God, who has saved sinners who deserve God. God is a loving God, who chose to die for us while we were His enemies! God is a merciful God, who spared me from His wrath by pouring it out on His Son. These are some of the many things that we will be praising God for in eternity! I want to see You Jesus and worship You forever in Your presence! MARANATHA!

I think this is awesome. I am so excited for heaven it’s rediculous. I am so sick of all the evil and sin in this world, all i want to do is escap and live forever with my savior. I need to take this excitement and show it while evangelizing and at school.

The last part of this verse really stood out to me. It does not often occur to me that everything was created according to God’s will; not just everything that happens in our lives. God is the ultimate creator who sits on the throne forever!! TO GOD BE THE GLORY AND HONOR AND POWER!! :D

It makes me upset that the Gay Rights movement has used the rainbow as something to represent themselves. The rainbow was meant to be a symbol of God’s faithfulness (Gen. 9:12-17); not the banner of sin! One day everyone will see the majesty and faithfulness of our King when they see the rainbow around his throne at our judgement.

10 the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying,

In my JMaca study Bible the commentary says that the elders recognize that God has given them their crowns, and because of this, they cast them before His throne giving Him honor. I can do this today because my life and everything that is good about me is a gift from God that I did not generate on my own. I am going to lay my life before His throne and give him the glory and authority to do whatever He wants with it. After all, it was His to begin with!

Revelation is intense! And sometimes it seems almost hard to imagine. However, this book should have such a huge impact on how we live!

Check out this blog I wrote about today’s SOTD!

http://www.churchforhighschoolers.com/blog/what-is-really-real

ANYWAYS! 2 At once I was in the Spirit, and behold, a throne stood in heaven, with one seated on the throne.

No one can enter Heaven unless they are of God….at small groups yesterday, we were talking about how it can actually be scary when you think about living an eternity in Heaven…but then it would be mooooore scary to live it in Hell! WOWZERS! We all got excited though on the idea of being in Heaven with the Lord. :) It’ll be awesome! John is very lucky to have had just a dream of this! And he’s probably there now. Jesus can’t come back till more souls are saaaaved! I thiiiink it’ll be hard to evangelize at Masters these next couple of days. XP BUT that doesn’t mean I can’t talk to them about what saved them! :D I want to see more souls be saved so they can be in Heaven with the Lord instead of Hell…MARANATHA!

God is so worthy of my praise and he deserves my absolute best! Everything he does is for good and I am so blessed with receiving what I am provided with when I deserve the total opposite. God is my creator and he should be praised for that and for everything he does! God is so holy and perfect! It is so intense to think that nothing is possible without the Lord. Without him there would be nothing and I praise him for who he truly is! I pray that I will always be thankful in every situation and praise and thank God for his creations and what he does in my life. He deserves all the glory, honor, and praise! I want my actions and everything I do to be for the glory of God!

He is SO worthy to recieve our glory honor and power. This verse reminds me of the song, Cannons by Phil Wickham. I absolutely love this song, and I love this verse from Revelations..I think it really shows how much God deserves and how we really do need to give it all to him. . “I’m so unworthy, but still you loved me, forever my heart, will sing of how great you are.”

I am so excited to praise the Lord like this for eternity! But why wait until I am in Heaven to praise him like this? I can do that while I am on earth. This should be my prayer daily, And I should be praising and glorifying the Lord through my actions every day also. This verse just reminds me of how powerful and amazing the Lord is and how amazing and awesome Heaven will be. I am so excited to eternally praise the Lord!!!! Heaven will be awesome. I just need to remember that I should not wait until Heaven to praise the Lord, I should be praising him daily through my thoughts, actions and words.

“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!”

9 And whenever the living creatures give glory and honor and thanks to him who is seated on the throne, who lives forever and ever, 10 the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne, saying,

11 “Worthy are you, our Lord and God,
to receive glory and honor and power,
for you created all things,
and by your will they existed and were created.”

Wow, I am so excited for this, but also scared out of my mind. I mean those animals needed wings just to hide themselves from the glory of God! He is just so holy and glorious! It’s hard not to end every sentence in this comment with an exclamation point because this is a description of GOD. Like, what a crazy awesome scripture! To have a picture painted of the Father?!?!?! WOW I’m just blown away!

John’s description of God stood out to me today. God is so intense that John used luminous colors to describe His majesty – jasper, carnelian, rainbow and emerald. There are no human words, no earthly description, that could possibly describe the splendor and majesty of God. It got me thinking how oftentimes I fail to consider the unmatched, indescribable glory of God. The world calls God, “the old man upstairs,” which is so disrespectful. Reading passages of Scripture like Revelation, where I am given a glimpse into the intense majesty of who God is helps elevate my view of God. He is God, not some holy earthly guy, but God. The response of the angels, elders, and beasts in heaven who fall facedown when they are in the presence of God is what I need to keep in my mind. Yes, God is my loving Father, but He deserves to be treated with the utmost reverence, respect, and awe!

If it wasn’t for God, nothing would have been created! We are here because of him and we need to represent him everyday; He deserves that and more! God is deserving of praise and all of our glory all day, everyday. He is amazing and awesome and that is the ONLY reason we are here:)

God is SO holy! He is absolutely perfect! God deserves praise for being the creator of the universe and all living things. God is absolutely worthy of my praise. Every day I need to praise God for his glory and power. God is my creator and I need to honor him in praise and obedience. I need to be digging into God’s word more daily and acting on obedience to the things I read. If I am created in God’s image then I should want to be holy like He is holy and sin less for His glory!
Maranatha!

The word for EVERY DAY! This is The basis for our daily life: get this in proper perspective and it will lead to the rest of the gospel both the bad news and the most excellent news of Jesus! Now how do I respond to this truth today? Lord, fill me with Your Spirit to grow in Christlikeness and honor You with my thoguths and actions today! And please come soon!

Everything on earth has been created by God. Through him are all things, and without him there would be nothing. And God is more than deserving of all praise. He created man and in due response, men should worship him for how great he is. Here this verse is talking about heaven. It spoke of the four living creatures, and how they begin to exalt God. And when they start, then the twenty-four elders fall facedown before God and begin to sing the words in the verse above. They begin praising God, for he is more than worthy to receive glory and honor and power. They worship him for everything that is, acknowledging that by him all things have been made. I need to join in the song of praising God all the time! He is more than worthy of all I have to say and sing in praise to him. He deserved my whole-hearted worship. As did the twenty-four elders, I need to fall facedown before my King as I praise his name on high!

10 the twenty-four elders fall down before him who is seated on the throne and worship him who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne

It makes me consider how ill-prepared I am, as much as I may think I’m ready to meet the Lord. It is incredibly humbling…here these crowned elders are, sitting around our God, and THEY fall facedown before the Lord, tossing THEIR crowns to the wayside. It makes me disgusted with how caught up with the stuff of life I can get, just going through motions. It makes me realize how serious I need to be toward God’s Word, where He tells us EVERYTHING He wanted us to know about Him for this life. Am I squandering my life that He has given me? Am I going to meet my Maker and be told I’ve done well with the talents and time He has given me…?

Oh, Father, for-GIVE me for my selfishness. Forgive me for how lightly I have taken this life You have gifted me with…and en-TRUST-ed to me. Lord God, thank You for this chapter of Your Word, that slows things down and shows me how I need to squelch the sin of my life–the selfishness that is intrinsic to me. Please, Father: convict me by Your Holy Spirit to consider in ALL choices that I have, what pleases YOU most, and not ME. Grow my fear of You, that I may be found in Your Word even more, learning and applying all that pleases and displeases You; stepping out of ignorant darkness and into Your marvelous light. It’s like Spence said: “These creatures are intense! Multiple eyes! I’m not even sure the use of that.” Man, Lord…! Open OUR eyes, so that we may know and understand You better, and be propelled to share Your Message with the world. Grow our love for people and our fear for You, so that we come to embrace that our purpose for this life is to evangelize the world and make disciples for and of You, and NOT to just make it through school, with a certain GPA so that we can go off to an esteemed college. Help us to see that we need to be using our world and circumstances as a vehicle to make relationships with people who only know this world, and open them up/expose them to a Love that they’ve never known or fathomed. There could be no better time than this Easter season; there could be no better time than TODAY. In Christ’s strong, holy, and saving Name we pray. Amen.

“Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord God Almighty,
who was and is and is to come!” (Rev. 4:8)

These creatures are intense! Multiple eyes! I’m not even sure the use of that. Yet, besides the ‘intenseness’ of these creatures they focus on one thing: “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty”. They even say it three times just to get the point across that God is really really really holy, and not only that, but they repeat it day and night to never cease forever and ever.

God is holy, set apart, and there is no one like our God! He is free of the corruption of sin and is good forever and ever, and does not steep down to the sinful level of humans.

“…but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy” (1 Peter 1:15-16).

Peter mentions a state of conduct that should be present in us as a result of God’s holiness: reciprocate back that same holiness in return.

How I would love to run off a different standard. Not a weak societal standard as the World does, but holiness, absolute perfection, pursuing even in the littlest, tiny little, baby sin, and destroying it.

The pursuit of holiness! I’m setting my sights on perfection…wow that’s tough.

Holy is the Lord! Bring it!