Before I read my Bible this morning, I already had a topic and words of encouragement in my mind that I’ll write today; but the story in Revelation Chapter 19 which was part of my reading prompted me to write something else instead, and that’s how I was convinced to start reading the Bible. Revelation 19: 9-10 and Rev. 22:8-9, the Apostle John wrote his encounter with an angel who showed him of what is to come in the last days. Being awe-stricken by what he saw, he knelt down before the angel and worship him but the angel said to him in verse 10, “Don’t do that! I'm a fellow servant with you and your brothers and sisters who hold firmly to the testimony of Jesus. Worship God, because the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.” Immediately, I was urged to read more of the Bible. I was raised worshipping Michael the Archangel who is the patron saint of my hometown.
However God’s ways are higher than our ways. He made a way for me to know Him for who He really is when I was in Saudi Arabia. God led me to join an underground Church where I joyfully found the truth that has set me free from fear of death. It was God’s revelation of the hidden treasure in ancient time to understand the full meaning of Good Friday and Resurrection Sunday that we’ve just commemorated, why the Apostle Paul wrote in his letter to the Philippians 1:21 which says, “For me, to live is Christ and to die is gain.” It is gain for the Apostle Paul, for me and for all the believers because His death and His resurrection have eternally sealed the truth that the Apostle Paul has declared in Colossians 1:13-14. It says, “For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son He loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” Having been forgiven from all our sins yesterday, today and tomorrow, Hebrews 10:10,14 declares the Good News to the whole lost world, the hope of all hopes, “we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the Body of Jesus Christ once for all . . . because by one sacrifice He has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”
What a wonderful thing! God the Father was completely satisfied with the ultimate sacrifice of His Son and we now have the assurance that we stand perfected and completed in the eyes of our heavenly Father and are being sanctified by faith in God’s promises.
Hence, we are the most blessed people looking forward to experience our blessed hope that is written in Phil. 3:20-21; 4:1 making us more determined to live for Christ, “But our citizenship is in heaven, and we eagerly wait for a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ. He will make these poor bodies of ours like His own glorious body. So then, my dearly loved and longed for brothers and sisters, my joy and crown, in this manner stand firm in the Lord, dear friends.”