Revelation 7:11-12 - "And all the angels were standing around the throne and around the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell on their faces before the throne and worshiped God, saying, 'Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen.'"
An oft run tv ad asks, "What's in your wallet?" The better question for us today is "What's on your list?"
We have lists for a lot of things. Daily "things to do" lists. A running "grocery list." Amanda and I have a "packing list" for a little trip to help our daughter, Cassidy, move to a new home. I have a very short "bucket list" of things I want to do before I die. I have a "things I want my kids to know about God" list. We have a prayer list. We have a "thanks be to God" list. There are lists, it seems, for everything that is truly important to us.
But God, in the Bible verses today, asks us if we really have the most important lists. Yes, I do have God on the names of some of my lists, but God's asking if I have any lists of things that help me myself and therefore you yourself to know and remember God. After all, if Jesus teaches us, in John 17:3, that abundant, full, and eternal life is tied to knowing God and his Son, Jesus Christ, whom he sent, then I better stop and think if I can make any lists about any particular things about God, ya know, like names for God in the Bible, attributes of God in the Bible, and today's Bible verses list of things that should be ascribed to God. Some guy, named Meredith, made a huge book of "Bible lists" that even helps us to know the many Bible lists about God and Jesus that help us to have eternal life by knowing God more intimately.
Today's verses from Revelation 7:11-12 have the angels standing around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, falling on their faces before the throne and worshiping God with a list, saying, "Amen! Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honor and power and might be to our God forever and ever! Amen." If you're counting, that's a list of seven things that belong to God, which we're to acknowledge as belonging to God. We're either supposed to publicly give these to God from our heart (blessing, glory, thanksgiving, and honor), or we're supposed to acknowledge them as coming from God alone if we have them (wisdom, power, and might).
So, if you're a list-maker, and we all are, whether we write them down or not, then the next time you make a list, may that list be a reminder for us that God wants us to have the most important lists. God wants us to have lists of things we know about God, for it is in knowing God and Jesus more intimately each day that we have the abundant, eternal life that God eagerly desires for the list of all of us, who are his children.
Praise God!
Pastor Chris
"The gospel is the story of Jesus [what God's only Son has done for us that we can't do for ourselves], spoken as a promise." - Robert Jenson
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