Heaven On Earth - Part 3

“And the twelve gates were twelve pearls; every several gate was of one pearl.” (Rev. 21:21a)

I firmly believe that Scripture is a unified whole and that the Bible agrees with itself. Accordingly, the book of Revelation tracks with the other books of the Bible – it does not, after reading about the life of Jesus in the Gospels and of how to attain to life in the Spirit in the Epistles - send us off on a tangent separate and apart from that which we have previously read to contemplate strange and bizarre end-of-the-world scenarios.

A recurring theme in the New Testament is that of suffering leading to the Lord’s glory:

“If so be that we suffer with him, that we may be also glorified together." (Rom. 8:17b)

“And our hope of you is stedfast, knowing that as ye are partakers of the sufferings, so shall ye be also of the consolation.” (2 Cor. 1:7)

“If we suffer, we shall also reign with him.” (2 Tim. 2:12a)

“But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.” (1 Peter 4:13)

Seeing and knowing God as all-powerful and all-loving at the same time, we can see that He ordains our circumstances to conform us to the image of His Son (Rom. 8:28, 29). As we willingly embrace our circumstances instead of rejecting them as the devices of the enemy to make us miserable, we enter into His sufferings, and His sufferings work in us the full measure of His glory. And what child of God does not want to see His glory?

The gates of pearl tell the same story. A pearl begins as a grain of sand gets lodged within an oyster. Because the grain of sand is a great irritation to the oyster, it secretes the milky liquid around the sand, gradually forming the pearl. What began as a nuisance ends up a great treasure. Even so, as we allow our circumstances to bring out the sweetness of the Lord within us, we find greater measures of the Lord’s glory revealed to us.

The gates of pearl are for the Lord’s entrance into our inner man, not for our entrance into a Disneylandesque theme park in the sky. (Oh, there will be heaven – and it will be so much more wonderful than we have ever imagined it to be. There will be a greater attraction than pearly gates and golden streets - there will be Jesus.) “Lift up your heads, O ye gates; and be ye lift up, ye everlasting doors; and the king of glory shall come in.” (Psalm 24:7)

May the Lord of glory find an entrance into our lives as we yield to the circumstances He brings our way.