July 25th, 2026

This summer, we are embarking on an 8-week journey through the book of Revelation.  Our prayer for you as you read this book and we tackle it together is that you will be able to see Jesus clearly each day, and that it will help you to remain faithful and live in hopeful anticipation of the day when Jesus will return! 

Welcome to Week 3!

Day 7: Reflection Day

Read John 16:33

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

This week, we tackled Revelation 6,7, and 8.  These chapters mark the beginning of God’s judgment and are filled with the opening of seals, colored horses and riders, robes washed in blood to make them white, and the sounding of trumpets… each bringing new levels of destruction on the earth.  The images we read about may have seemed foreign and confusing at times, and also terrifying at the same time. 

Reading about crashing economies, famine, wars, plagues, wild beasts, earthquakes, mountains and islands being removed from the earth, stars falling from the sky, and martyrs of the faith… is overwhelming! And if we aren’t careful, it could cause us to become fearful.  

As I thought about all of those things, I found myself asking God a lot of questions…But mostly I found myself asking: “God, what do you want me to see about who you are in all of this?” As I tried to see all of it through the eyes of what I know about who God is from what I have read in other places in Scripture, I made some observations:

• He is NOT a God of fear
• God is good
• God is loving
• God is just
• God saves

So if God is all of those things in other places in Scripture, can I find them here too? “…because his Word says he is the same yesterday, today, and forever” (Hebrews 13:8). So I tried to read again with different eyes, looking for the God I know.  I found him in verse 1 of Chapter 6.

I watched as the Lamb opened the first of the seven seals. Then I heard one of the four living creatures say in a voice like thunder, “Come!” (emphasis mine)

This time, in addition to the judgments John wrote about, I noticed the Lamb. Scripture often refers to Jesus as the lamb who was killed for us – for our salvation. I noticed Jesus. At every step of the way, he was there. He was the one to open the seals. He was the one to set things in motion. He was in control.

If you read just looking at the judgments, it can be easy to actually miss Jesus in it all. Then it all just looks and feels like chaos! But when you see it all through the lens of Jesus being in control, things shift. It is no longer chaos, but God’s very specific plan. He is good, and just, and loving, and he is still our Savior. The judgments are a part of the perfection of his character, setting all things right once and for all. 

When I remind myself that God is in control throughout the ages, nothing I read or experience in this life needs to have the power to cause me to fear. He is present in it all.

I think the best thing is that God actually wants us to see Him in it all. To know that no matter what, He is still in control…in this life and whatever is to come. We can walk in confidence and peace, trusting that He holds it all.

“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

Reflection question:

How does Revelation strengthen your endurance during difficult times?