Jaw-dropping Jewels about Jesus
Rarely does Jesus, God the Son, do exactly what we expect of Him. It seems odd that He so frequently surprises us, given that He never changes. Hebrews 13:8 makes this absolute statement: “Jesus the same yesterday, and today, and forever.” Still, though He is blessedly consistent in His goodness, Jesus does unforeseen things. Even when He does what is expected, He does not always do it in the way that we anticipate. Let us join with Jesus on a jaw-dropping journey. (I will be using this opening paragraph for each of the brief messages in this series. The following material will change daily.)
Revelation 21:4 is a verse of eternal assurance: “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” In the original Greek, “all tears” is singular, indicating that our Savior God is aware of each individual tear of each individual believer and will tend to each one. This personal attention is illustrated throughout Scripture, including in the account of Hagar and Ishmael in Genesis 21. Close to death by dehydration in the desert, Hagar despaired: “And the water was spent in the bottle, and she cast the child under one of the shrubs. And she went, and sat her down over against him a good way off, as it were a bowshot: for she said, ‘Let me not see the death of the child.’ And she sat over against him, and lift up her voice, and wept” (verses 15-16). Of course she cried, for she had lost all hope. God intervened, providing water (verse 19) and promising a future of blessing (verse 18). I think of the line of a song that old friend Ken Fernald used to sing: “Tears are a language that God understands.” Yes, He does understand – and He “shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”