After these things

“After these things I looked, and behold, a door standing open in heaven, and the first voice which I had heard, like the sound of a trumpet…, said, "Come up here, and I will show you what must take place after these things”  Rev 4:1     

      One of my favorite phrases found in the book of The Revelation of Jesus Christ is the oft-used axiom “after these things”.  Maybe this is because I am aware that the best things that God has in store for those who believe all belong to that greatly anticipated dispensation of the future.  This is precisely what this phrase that is repeated nine times in the book of Revelation is speaking about, that time “after this present age”.  We live in what we as Christians today recognize as the church age. It is the age of God’s mercy and His grace.  As Jesus promised, it is the time of the empowering of His church by His Holy Spirit.  It is a season that is acknowledged as “the day of salvation” (2 Co. 6:2). The blessings and glories of this day were eagerly anticipated by the O.T. prophets. Peter recognized that heartfelt eagerness writing “of this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful search and inquiry, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow” (1 Pe. 1:10-11).

Even the prophets of old recognized that the glory of this age cannot even be compared to the blessing and glory of those things that will come “after these things”. Paul writes “there is a glory of the terrestrial (this age) and a glory of the celestial (the age to come)”.  It is those things that will come “after these things” that we are called to set our hearts and minds upon.  What occupies your thoughts and desires each day? Are you living a life that testifies to the priorities of this life, or of the priorities of the life to come?  Peter instructs us how to live a self-controlled life in this present age. He says that ability hinges upon our focus on “the grace to come” (1 Pe.1:13). When we set our hearts and minds on those things to come, then our hearts will rightly discern the inferiority of this present age.

Today, fill your thoughts with the incomparable glories that Jesus has promised you. Allow Him to make those glories the reality of your today!