Really Living

DEVOTION

THE REVELATION

REALLY LIVING

Rev 22:1-5

22:1 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever.

NIV

All sorts of ideas are conjured up from this description. Is this but one street in this city? Is there only one river flowing down the center of this street? Is there just one tree of life? How can it be on both sides lining the river? Going back, why are there twelve gates? How does a river flow if this city, as some would suggest is a cube? If this city, as we envision is a pyramid/mountain with the throne of God at its peak, then the river of life would be flowing down all the streets which eventually lead to the twelve gates. Streets that wind their way down throughout all the mountain/city with the river flowing in the center of those streets. On each side of the river it is lined with the tree of life. The Greek word used as tree, can be anything of wood, a stick, a club, a tree, both singular and plural. So it is possible this tree of life is many trees of life lining the streets of this city. All bearing fruit twelve months of the year.  But of course we are in a new order without a sun and moon, and we have no days and nights, we are in eternity. So it is unlikely we have months. But what we know is these trees, this tree of life will continually bear fruit for all people to eat. This certainly has some reference to the tree of life that stood in the Garden of Eden. We know that because Adam and Eve eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil God had to cast them out so they would not reach out and eat from the tree of life as well and become like God, which is living for all eternity. This is also one of the promises in the seven letters to the churches, to the one who overcomes, that we will be able to eat from the tree of life. Its leaves are for the healing of the nations. That could mean a lot of things, but the point of it is that all the people who are living within this new city of Jerusalem, that are living with God for all eternity are from all over the world of today. Sometimes we think we are the only ones, who know God, after all we consider ourselves a Christian nation, even if our current leader does not. But there are believers in every nation, and although we cannot communicate, or experience communion with them, once we all get to this new city of Jerusalem we will all be of one language, one nation, one people of God, living in peace and harmony with each other. There will be true healing, of all peoples. Because of the act of disobedience of Adam and Eve they were under the curse that God put upon them. Eve or woman was to be ruled by her husband, Adam was to painfully toil all the days of his life to product food from the ground. But here in this new city there is no more curse. All has been healed. We will all in fact be equal in the eyes of God, women will no longer be ruled by men, as it still is today in many countries. We will no longer have to toil or work for our food, this is true retirement. The tree of life will be food for us all the time, which as well as providing food, it gives us the right to be like God, eternal, living forever and ever. God had said at one time that no one could look at his face and live, but now we all will see his face. We will have a very personal experience with God. Who knows, but we might even find him walking throughout the streets, hugging us as we meet him, as he desired to do with Adam. This is the reason he created us in the first place, to have fellowship. With this in mind we ought to consider it might serve us well to get used to that now. To consistently be in fellowship with God now. This would not mean we could just sit around and do nothing, but sing hymns and praise and pray. It would mean, however, that no matter what we are doing we are aware we are in fellowship with God. This should effect our behavior, our interaction with others, our responses, our thoughts about others, and every aspect of our lives. Now do we fail at that? Yes! But that does not mean we should give up either, we need to seek forgiveness for our failure, and get back up and try again. Just as a parent will hug their child when it is trying to walk and it falls. The parent will pick it up and let it try again until it does. So it is with our God, when we fail, he picks us up and tells us to try again. Someday we might just get it all right. But for now, we do have to keep getting up and keep trying to live as if we are in fellowship with our Lord, as if he is walking by our side along the streets of gold with the river of life flowing down their center and lined with the tree of life, where we can reach out our hand and eat its fruit everyday all day for the all of eternity. We should live as through we are already there.  There we will be really living, but for now we can also be really living.