Getting carried away
By Pastor Reid Matthias
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[The angel] carried me away in the Spirit to a mountain great and high, and showed me the Holy City, Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God (Revelation 21:10).
‘Don’t get carried away.’
This phrase seems to always be used when something exciting is about to occur, whether playing a game, doing a hobby, shopping or any number of things that you enjoy. The caution is to keep my feet on the ground – be realistic. It’s like when I told my wife that I was pretty sure that my football team, the Fremantle Dockers, was going to win the Grand Final this year – she said, ‘Don’t get carried away’.
To be carried away means to go well above and beyond what can logically be expected or hoped for. In Revelation, John (literally) gets carried away to be shown a vision of what heaven is going to be like. How would you like to get carried away by that? Have you ever wondered to yourself what this is going to look like?
In the city that descends, John gets carried away by the vision of Jerusalem without a temple. Think about how strange this must be for him. There is no building, because ‘the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the lamb is its lamp’ (Revelation 21:22b,23).
When that great, glorious, and brilliant day arrives, and the world is restored again to its perfection, we’ll get carried away that we won’t be going to a church building and we won’t even need the sun to guide our way – because this function is fulfilled by God through the Lamb.
What images come to mind when you think of this?
Carry me away, Heavenly Father, to see a vision of the perfect future you have in store for me and all who belong to you. Help me to feel the expectation and excitement as I wait for this day. Amen.
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