DAILY DEVOTIONAL – November 30, 2020
“Holy Re-Written”
Prayer: God and Father, You are the righteous Judge of all. You demand holiness and we admit that we are far from worthy of Your grace. We turn to Christ Your Son as our only hope of life and salvation; Your Son given as the perfect sacrifice for our sin so that by faith in Him we may receive Your forgiveness and have our names written in the book of Life. We entrust ourselves to you in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Scripture: Revelation 20:11-15
11 Then I saw a great white throne and him who was seated on it. From his presence earth and sky fled away, and no place was found for them.12 And I saw the dead, great and small, standing before the throne, and books were opened. Then another book was opened, which is the book of life. And the dead were judged by what was written in the books, according to what they had done. 13 And the sea gave up the dead who were in it, Death and Hades gave up the dead who were in them, and they were judged, each one of them, according to what they had done.14 Then Death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire. This is the second death, the lake of fire. 15 And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.
Devotional – “Holy Re-Written”
God is a Holy God, and He has warned in His Word that every person dead or alive will be called into account on that final Day of Judgement when Christ returns in all of His glory and when God brings this broken and wicked world to an end. Each one of us will stand before the great white throne of our Maker and Creator God and the book of our life will be opened and God will perfectly and righteously judge us according to what we have done and not done.
Knowing what we know of ourselves and our own sinful lives, if this is all that we were told was going to happen on that final day, we should be absolutely terrified of God’s final judgement and be in mourning of our inevitable fate. However, that IS NOT all that is written in God’s Word. As it also says in verses 12 and 15 of our text from Revelation 20, “Then another book was opened, which is the book of life… And if anyone’s name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.” Later in Revelation 21 we are told more about the book of life and what is to become of those whose names are found to be written in it. Revelation 21:27 says, speaking of heaven, “Nothing unclean will ever enter into it [heaven], nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those who are written in the Lamb’s book of life.”
If left to the contents of the book written by our own lives, there isn’t a single person dead or alive that would be permitted to enter into heaven and the presence of God. Well, that’s not entirely true is it? There was One man, One God-Man Jesus Christ who did live a perfect life before the eyes of God as the Son of God. This same Jesus was obedient to God His Father even to the point of death on a cross, which He suffered in order to pay for the sins of the world. For your sins and my sins. Three days later, God raised Him again from the dead and restored Him to His rightful place at God’s right hand. Therefore, there is only one book of life that will withstand the judgement of God; the Lamb’s book of life. Only those whose names are found in His book will be saved – those who have forsaken their own life and turned to Jesus Christ, putting their faith in Him and trusting in His life, death and resurrection that has provided the forgiveness and salvation of God.
In other words, when we confess the sinfulness of our own life and turn in faith to Christ, then His book of life becomes our book of life! By God’s grace through faith in Jesus’ death and resurrection, when that final day of judgement comes, the scarlet pages of our own book will be found white, and blank, because our names have been written into the Lamb’s book, and God no longer sees our sins but instead sees the perfect life and worth of His Son Jesus and receives us into His presence as He would His own Son.
As it says in 2 Corinthians 5, “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come. All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them. For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
Friends, know for certain that by faith alone in Christ, your name is written in the Lamb’s book of life and that we have only to look forward to the final Day of God’s judgement, with all hopefulness and anticipation, because the blood of Christ has erased the pages of our own book of life and has replaced it with the story of His own righteous life. Knowing this, live each day in the Word of God, in the Word that tells the true story of God’s amazing love and grace given to us in Christ. Surrender each day, each page of your life, to our Lord who has risen to give us new life and who is faithful bring to completion the good works He has begun in us. Live each day in thankfulness and praise to Christ Jesus who, as Hebrews 12 declares, is the “author and finisher of our faith.”
May the peace of the Lord Jesus be and remain with you all, and remember, that God has forgiven yesterday, is with you today and has already taken care of tomorrow. Amen.
