The Crown

DEVOTION

THE REVELATION

THE CROWN

Rev 2:8-11

8 "To the angel of the church in Smyrna write:

These are the words of him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again. 9 I know your afflictions and your poverty — yet you are rich! I know the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. 10 Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.

11 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death.

NIV

Once again we have to forgo looking at some historical singular church or some period or age in church history, so that the living word of God has significance in our lives as it is intended to do and be. Again we are assured these are the words of Jesus as he dictated them to John. There is no doubt that some of us in the body of Christ have certain afflictions and experience a sense of poverty. If we look at the church as a whole, that is every believer throughout the world, many of us have both afflictions and poverty. We also can see that we have had, can have and will have some form of an affliction in our lifetime. Some of us might never experience poverty in a monetary sense, but yet we might have in another sense, spiritual poverty. Yet still we could find ourselves in financial poverty at any moment in our lives. How we react to both an affliction and poverty is the key to the message here. Jesus assures us that we are indeed rich, for we have the right to be called the children of God. What is said here about false Jews also applies to false Christians. We need to be first aware that some who claim to be Christians, even those who claim to be pastors or evangelists, are not actually what they claim to be. Secondly we should make sure our claim as being a believer in Christ is true, that we not only profess it, but we live it, so that others cannot think of us as being hypocritical, saying one thing, but living something else. We have to know if we are not living completely for Jesus or under the influence of the Spirit than we have to be living under the influence of Satan. This is not a partial lifestyle, we cannot serve two masters as it has to be one or the other. Let us make sure it is Jesus. Satan may attempt to imprison some of us for a short time. This is the message here. Satan always tries to tempt us to sin, to make us suffer, to do harm to us. He does not love us, he hates us because we love Jesus. He will also attempt to persecute us in some way, and if he can cause us to become distracted from Jesus and pay more attention to our own wants and desires, forgoing our trust in Jesus, he has in fact entrapped us in his prison of self-absorbed ambitions. We may never have to experience a persecution strong enough to bring us death, but in fact many believers have, even some in our lifetime. First we should remember that the word tells us that when one suffers we all suffer, and when one rejoices we all rejoice. Second we should be aware that it could come to a time when we ourselves are in the position of personal persecution facing death, such as Rachel Scott did at Columbine High School some years back. A moment such as that could happen to anyone of us at any time, especially in these times of such terrorist filled years. But if we stand firm, either in afflictions or temptations, or persecutions we will be given the crown of life. Standing firm, being faithful means not giving in to feeling sorry for ourselves in those life situations, sorrow can lead to depression, depression leads us to doubt, and that is all Satan wants from us, to doubt God. When we stand firm, faithful to want we know is true, God, we will receive the crown of life, eternal life, which Satan surely does not want us to have. But wait there is more! If we overcome those feelings remaining faithful through all them, we will not have to experience the second death, we will not be harmed by it at all. This certainly tells us the truth about life and death. We all must die in the physical but there is a second death which is of the spirit. When the Day of the Lord comes and all, both the living and the dead, are judged, those whose names are not found in the book of life will be cast, along with the Devil, the beast and the false prophet, into the lake of burning sulfur, the second death. This is the meaning John wrote about when we compared eternal life to perishing. If we overcome we have no concerned about this second death, for we will be standing with our crown of life.