Take a moment to read the entire chapter of Revelation 22 before reading the devotional below.
This final chapter of the Bible is one of my favorite passages in the Bible. The description of the streams flowing through the streets of heaven brings me a supernatural peace. I am reminded of Psalm 23 in which God “leads me beside peaceful streams.” For a shepherd boy like David writing a worship song, he’s thinking about his daily life. For me, I’m imagining a different world entirely.
In John 7, Jesus describes this eternal living water as well. There is a connection between the Holy Spirit flowing through his people and these eternal, living streams. As we think about the supernatural, eternal realm, we have to be careful not to boil things down to what we know here on earth. Jesus use symbols and parables to try to relate the kingdom of God to earthly things we could understand. But the reality is far greater than we can imagine.
An angel is giving John and us a final tour of heaven, a glimpse into a reality we can only imagine. There is a beckoning that cries out to us from Jesus himself: “Come!” If you close your eyes for a moment, and pause long enough to feel still, you just might hear it. A beckoning, a longing, a distant cry for a better world. The whole world is crying out for help, groaning and buckling under the weight of suffering. We have glimpses of hope and goodness here on earth, but these are simply shadows of God’s kingdom. I imagine a call-and-response that the entire world is doing with Jesus. “Help!” “Come!” “Help!” “Come!” If you can hear that beckoning to come to a greater place, follow that voice. Dig deep into the Bible to listen to the words of God, most fully complete in the person of Jesus. And then ready yourself for a grand entrance into his kingdom, where we will feast and dance and bask in the end of evil. This is the hope upon which I have built my life.