Welcome to this Daily PPJ devotional. Read 2 Chronicles 35 and Revelation 21. This devotional is about Revelation 21. Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth. For the first heaven and earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from the throne, saying, Behold, the dwelling-place of God is with man, and he will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death, or mourning, or crying, or pain, for the former things have passed away. And the one seated on the throne said, Behold, I make all things new. Then he said, Write this down, for these words are faithful and true. And he told me, It is done, I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give freely from the spring of the water of life. The one who overcomes will inherit all things, and I will be his God, and he will be my son. but to the cowardly, and unbelieving, and abominable, and murderers, and sexually immoral, and sorcerers, and idolaters, and all liars. Their place will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur. This is the second death. Then one of the seven angels, with the seven bowls full of the seven final plagues, came and said to me, Come, I will show you the bride, the wife of the lamb. and he carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the holy city of Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, shining with the glory of God. Its radiance was like a most precious jewel, like a jasper as clear as crystal. The city had a great and high wall, with twelve gates inscribed with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, and twelve angels at the gates. There were three gates on the east, three on the north, three on the south, and three on the west. The wall of the city had twelve foundations bearing the names of the twelve apostles of the Lamb. The angel who spoke with me had a golden measuring rod to measure the city and its gates and walls. The city lies foursquare, with its width the same as its length, and he measured the city with the rod, and all its dimensions were equal, twelve thousand stadia in length and width and height. And he measured its wall to be one hundred forty-four cubits, by the human measure the angel was using. The wall was made of jasper, and the city itself of pure gold, as pure as glass. The foundations of the city walls were adorned with every kind of precious stone. The first foundation was Jasper, the second, Sapphire, the third, Chalcedony, the fourth, Emerald, the fifth, Sardonyx, the sixth, Carnelian, the seventh, Chrysolite, the eighth, Beryl, the ninth, Topaz, the tenth, Chrysophrase, the eleventh, Jacinth, and the twelfth, Amethyst. and the twelve gates were twelve pearls, with each gate consisting of a single pearl. The main street of the city was pure gold, as clear as glass. But I saw no temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple, and the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, because the glory of God illuminates the city, and the Lamb is its lamp. By its light the nations will walk, and into it the kings of the earth will bring their glory. Its gates will never be shut at the end of the day, because there will be no night there. And into the city will be brought the glory and honor of the nations, but nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who practices an abomination or a lie, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. This is God's Word. This is it, the chapter that describes what everyone who loves God is waiting for. As beautiful as this earth is, as joyful and loving as this life can be at times, we all know that something big is amiss. This world is fundamentally broken, and that is because the most important piece is missing, God. But he's not missing in the sense that he's absent, for we believe that God is omnipresent, everywhere present, in the fullness of his being. No, God is missing from this life in the sense that he is not the center of our lives, the center of our worship, the source of our joy, the reason for our living, our hope for the future. When Adam and Eve chose to sin, God graciously let them live and decreed for the human race to continue. But we've never experienced the kind of fellowship that they had with him. We do not know what it means to walk with God without trying to hide ourselves with fig leaves. But when Christ returns, and the events that end this age are over, there will be a new heaven and a new earth, as verse 1 says. and God's dwelling place will be now among the people, as verse 3 says. The pain and sorrow and death that pollute the joys and love of this life will be over, according to verse 4. We will have a joyous welcome into God's kingdom that eclipses any joy we could have in this life. The closest we could come is our wedding day, which this passage uses to try to describe for us what that day will be like, as we saw in verses 9-14. And who gets in? Only those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life. That's verse 27 in the NIV. So, not all the people who claim to be great in this life are getting in. The only people who get in are those who have been rescued from sin and the punishment that we all deserve for it and that rescue happened by the sacrificial death of our Savior, Jesus Christ, for us. Here is hope and encouragement for you today. Life will be perfect someday if you're in Him. No matter how badly this life treats you, There is a perfect hope of eternity in Christ. So once again, I invite you, if you're not a Christian, to come to Christ. Not only will he forgive you of your sins and begin a relationship with you, but he offers you a future beyond what you could possibly imagine that will last for all eternity. So come to Christ for that salvation. and those of us who are in Christ, remember this with hope, no matter what happens to you in this life, the redemption of Christ is coming, and it will be like the greatest wedding that you ever could imagine. If you found this devotional helpful, go to my website, dailypbj.com, slash subscribe, enter your email address there, And starting tomorrow, you'll receive an email from me every day, containing a link to the daily scripture readings, so you can be reading God's Word every day, cued by the email. And the same email will contain a link to these devotionals, so you can watch, or listen, or read them, and I can help you apply what you've read from God's Word to your life every day. This is completely free, and you can unsubscribe at any time. So give it a try. Go to dailypbj.com slash subscribe. And please help me with financial support if you can. Go to dailypbj.com slash support. And please share this with someone else who may need to know the Lord or need the encouragement of looking forward to what He has prepared for us in eternity. May God bless you today. See you next time.