I Dare You to Read Revelation This Christmas...

Over the years, our Christmas traditions have developed. For instance, we put up our tree earlier and eat Chinese food on Christmas Eve, among many other things. Even more, though, the meaning of Christmas has been enhanced through stuff like following Advent and reading the book of Luke during the first 24 days of December. But the best Christmas gift I have ever received was a few years ago when I was taught how intricately woven together the story of Jesus' birth and second coming is.

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"When I saw him, I fell at his feet like a dead man. He laid his right hand on me and said, “Don’t be afraid. I am the First and the Last, and the Living One. I was dead, but look—I am alive forever and ever, and I hold the keys of death and Hades." Rev 1:17-18

"Day and night they never stop, saying, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God, the Almighty, who was, who is, and who is to come. Whenever the living creatures give glory, honor, and thanks to the one seated on the throne, the one who lives forever and ever, the twenty-four elders fall down before the one seated on the throne and worship the one who lives forever and ever. They cast their crowns before the throne and say, Our Lord and God, you are worthy to receive glory and honor and power, because you have created all things, and by your will they exist and were created." Rev 4

"You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slaughtered, and you purchased people for God by your blood from every tribe and language and people and nation. You made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they will reign on the earth....Worthy is the Lamb who was slaughtered to receive power and riches and wisdom and strength and honor and glory and blessing...Blessing and honor and glory and power be to the one seated on the throne, and to the Lamb, forever and ever!" Revelation 5

"Then I heard a loud voice in heaven say, The salvation and the power and the kingdom of our God and the authority of his Christ have now come, because the accuser of our brothers and sisters, who accuses them before our God day and night, has been thrown down. They conquered him by the blood of the Lamb" Revelation 12:10-11

"Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. I also saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared like a bride adorned for her husband...I did not see a temple in it, because the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, because the glory of God illuminates it, and its lamp is the Lamb. The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Its gates will never close by day because it will never be night there. They will bring the glory and honor of the nations into it. Nothing unclean will ever enter it, nor anyone who does what is detestable or false, but only those written in the Lamb’s book of life." Revelation 21

"I, Jesus, have sent my angel to attest these things to you for the churches. I am the Root and descendant of David, the bright morning star.” Rev 22:16

"Both the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” Let anyone who hears, say, “Come!” Let the one who is thirsty come. Let the one who desires take the water of life freely." Revelation 22:17

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