Reading your Bible for Today May 17

May 17: Revelation 21:10-21

KJV Key Verse: Revelation 21:16
16 And the city lieth foursquare, and the length* is as large as the breadth: and he measured the city with the reed*, twelve thousand furlongs. The length and the breadth and the height of it are equal.

Devotion:
When anyone asks me “how big is heaven going to be” my answer is not first to look in Revelation 21 and show them but to say that it is going to be large enough for every born again Christian to have the mansion that Christ has promised us! We are given the measurements of the space that it fills, roughly 1500 miles wide, long and high. That in itself is an awfully large space since we live on an earth that has an atmosphere of less than 1% of that! Our tallest buildings may seem huge to us, but this will be more than 3000 times the height! We are also talking about something covering Western Europe, but half the depth of the earth itself!

The single fact that the walls are 144 cubits thick (roughly 200 foot thick, or 70 meters) should be enough to give us confidence it is going to be a very safe place. Not only that, but we will have our God living with us, protecting us! There will be no evil, there will be no more sin, there will only be perfect peace... Something we will struggle to think of since we have been brought up in a world which is based on sin! Just as we struggle to think of the size of heaven, the state of heaven is something we can only imagine.

The descriptions we are given are based on an earthly man's views of something which is not earthly! I don't think we will fully realise just how much of a wonderful place heaven will be until we are there! Each of the elements described are picked for beauty, strength or purity. The fact that much of these are based on our Christian history shows how God has created us a perfect place, fulfilling His promises to His promised people! Nothing has been left to chance. Nothing has been left out. All His promised are fulfilled. That fact our Awesome God has created the perfect place for us to live knowing what we are going to be like when we do meet Him. We are not going to be in our worn-out and tired bodies! We are going to be given perfect bodies to live in our perfect new world. We should be in no doubt about how big or small heaven is! It's the perfect size!

Points to Ponder:
What is the biggest place you have ever been to?

God's place will be perfect!