Author: Greg Teats

Revelation Chapter 21

The first 20 chapters of Revelation were those of chaos, judgement, and cosmic battles.  Chapter 21 is the payoff.  John sees the ending God has been working toward the whole time, not people escaping to a cloud somewhere, but God renovating the whole world and moving in with his people for good.

After reading chapter 21, I find myself in a huge moment of reflection.  Let’s go over the bones of the chapter first.

A new heaven and a new earth – Like buying a new investment home.  This is more of a gutted renovation than a demolition.  Same home, completely restored

No more sea – The sea stood for chaos, danger and evil.  Nothing threatening is coming from it anymore.

The city comes down – New Jerusalem, or some would refer it to, Heaven on Earth!  Dressed like a bride on her wedding day.  Instead of heaven being somewhere we go, it becomes somewhere we already are.

God will dwell with them – God isn’t just some distant landlord anymore.  He lives next door, permanently.

No more tears, death, grief, crying, or pain – God personally wipes away every tear.  Every hospital room, funeral, and 2 a.m. worry is gone for good.

AND…..

• God says he is making all things new, not making all new things. He is restoring, not replacing
• ‘It is done’ – The project is finished
• Free water for the thirsty – Anyone who wants life can have it, no charge.
• The warning – This chapter lists those who stay outside like the cowardly, the faithless, murderers, and liars. Evil doesn’t get to move into the new neighborhood

Revelation 21 promises that the story ends with God fixing everything that is broken, living with his people face to face, and making sure pain, death, and evil never get another say.

My Reflection…..

Irony shows up so often in life when you think about it.  I was on the interstate quite a bit this weekend going back and forth from my parents to my in-laws.  I know everyone has seen those signs posted sometimes along the road that say something like ‘Jesus is Coming’.  Well, I saw one on Sunday driving back to Bloomington and it made me think.

The ironic part is how far my thinking about it took me down a rabbit hole and come to find out I would be reflecting on this chapter.  I have been seeing a lot of Senior Pastor Josh Howerton come across all my social media feeds lately.  If you have never heard of him that is fine, worth a look in my opinion.

So I read the sign ‘Jesus is Coming’ and instantly remembered a short video I saw last week of him playing a viral video of a young boy in the hospital coming out of anesthesia after some type of procedure.  It was a tear jerker, I won’t give away the details, but there were a few things the boy said that brought up the book of Revelation.

But here is where I connect Chapter 21 with what I was thinking on my drive back on Sunday.

AM I READY???

If Jesus comes later today or tomorrow, am I ready??  I am about half way through my life (hopefully), my children are very young, there is so much we all have yet to experience together.

With that said, I believe I am ready.

No, it is not a quick and easy ‘YES’, but if you give yourself time to think about it, about everything chapter 21 describes, you may very well get to the same conclusion I did.  There is a ton I still would love to do and every day I will keep chipping away at that long list.  But even before the reading, I felt strongly that I am ready.  AFTER reading it I am even more convinced.

Heavenly Father, thank You for the life You’ve given me, for my family, my work, and every blessing I didn’t earn. Thank You for the promise that You will one day make all things new, wipe away every tear, and dwell with Your people forever. I don’t know the day or the hour, but if today is the day You bring that promise to pass, I am ready. And until then, help me live each day with a grateful heart, showing Your love to the people You put in my path. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Luke Chapter 24

I’m not quite sure if I am responsible enough to cover such a meaningful chapter out of the Bible.  The Resurrection?!?!?!  The day the women went to the tomb, and the body of Jesus wasn’t there?  The walk to Emmaus with a ‘stranger’?  Everyone gathered together and Jesus is suddenly just standing there in the flesh?  This is some heavy reading, let’s dive in!

The Empty Tomb:

Early Sunday morning a group of women go to the tomb.  The stone had been rolled away.  They go in to find the absence of His body.  Two angels appear and ask the one of the infamous questions widely known, “Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive?  He isn’t here.  He is risen”.  I don’t know about you but my goodness this is some meaningful and gut punch text.  The angels reminded them that Jesus said all of this was going to happen!!  Then it clicked.  They remembered, but who is going to believe them?

The Walk to Emmaus:

Two disciples are walking to Emmaus, about 7 miles from Jerusalem, hashing out everything that had happened over the last few days.  Jesus joins them but is cloaked as a stranger.  He walks them through the scriptures explaining how this was all supposed to happen as it did.  They finally get to Emmaus.  Once they sit down for a bite, Jesus blesses and breaks the bread and they SEE him.  And in an instant, he vanishes.  Back to Jerusalem they go.

Jesus Appears to the Group:

While everyone has gotten back together to compare notes on the day, Jesus shows himself.  They all think it’s a ghost.  Not only does he say, ‘Look at me’, he eats a piece of grilled fish in front of them to drive the point home.  He goes on to repeat scripture again about how this was all meant to go this way and instructs them to wait for Him to send the Holy Spirit, which will fill them with power from Heaven to go forward.

Like I said earlier…. a powerful and meaningful chapter beyond any of our recognition.  None of us were there, we have never experienced anything like that in our lives.  Maybe we have had some powerful and prominent moments, but nothing like this.  He said this was the plan all along.

From grief and confusion to gradual recognition and finally full-on joy and mission.  Luke describes in this chapter the idea that the resurrected Jesus isn’t always immediately recognizable but reveals himself through scripture and shared meals.  This really makes me think ahead about the next time I participate in communion at church.  Usually during communion, I think about everyone at the Last Supper.  This time is going to be a little different.  When I take the bread, I am going to be thinking about how he revealed himself AFTER he had risen.  It was always there in the scripture for everyone to follow along just like it is still in the scripture today for you and I.

To Recap: Luke 24 doesn’t end with a body in a tomb.  It ends with hands lifted in blessing and disciples running back to Jerusalem full of joy instead of despair.  The empty tomb wasn’t a mystery to be solved.  It was the announcement that everything Jesus said would happen, happened.  He wasn’t a memory to mourn or a teacher to look back on.  He was walking beside them on the road, eating fish in front of them, reiterating scripture like it was always about him.  And that is still true today.  Jesus is alive and well, not a historical figure we study from a distance, but someone present, active, and worth building our lives around.

Exodus 33

This chapter picks up right after the golden calf disaster (which I ironically reflected on back in April).  God is not too fond of the Israelites BUT reassures them he will stand by his covenant commitments by still giving them the Promised Land and protecting them through the time of their restoration.  He was, however, so angry with them due to their stubborn disobedience that he was forced to back away to not destroy them.  After He expressed his anger with self-control, the people underwent a heart-wrenching self-examination.  They saw the truth, confessed their sins, and repented before God.  They went as far as to strip themselves of their jewelry and fancy clothes and go into a kind of public grief.  It makes me think of throwing my Apple watch and cell phone to the ground in embarrassment of how much I rely on those things so much in my day-to-day life.  This truly highlights that even when we fail miserably, we can be assure that God’s promises of reconciliation will stand.  All we need to do is go to God openly with our sins, seeking his help to find a new way of life.

Then Moses sets up a ‘meeting tent’ outside of the camp.  This is where he would talk to God ‘face to face, as a man speaks to a friend’.  This private time allows him to kind of push back at God.  Moses questions Him.  He favors Moses so much, then why wouldn’t He personally follow them on their journey instead of sending an angel instead.  It pays off for Moses and his people.  God comes back around but when Moses asks to see His face, God says no human can see His face and live, so he offers a compromise instead.  He’ll put Moses in a rock crevice, cover him with his hand, and let Moses see his back as he passes by.

This chapter is about broken trust being rebuilt through honest confrontation, not just glossed-over forgiveness.  Moses doesn’t accept a watered-down version of the relationship (an angel instead of God).  He holds out for the real thing and gets it.  This ‘see my back, not my face’ moment is often read as – you can experience the effects/aftermath of the divine but not grasp the whole of it directly.  It is important for all of us to have a clear vision of God.  As we see him more clearly, we better understand who we are.  All of us should seek to know God better and to experience his presence in our lives.

When I read out of the Old Testament, I often put myself not only in the shoes of someone like Moses, but more importantly the people that were following him.  For better or worse, at least Moses was able to speak with God quite a bit.  But the people weren’t.  They put their faith and trust in Moses which in turn was put in God.  It is not the same, but on Sundays I certainly put my faith and trust in the pastor each Sunday morning, but that isn’t the answer either.  I am comforted to know that I have a direct line to the Father at any given moment I want it.  Although I am very much guilty of not ringing His number as much as He or I would prefer.  I pray that we all take at least a few more moments of our ‘busy’ days to do 2 things.

1. Continue to ask him for forgiveness for anything and everything that we still aren’t holding a candle to.
2. Ask God, “How can I be a better follower to You?”

Zechariah Chapter 7

The people of Bethel decided to send a committee of folks to ask the priests and prophets a logistics question.  “Now that things are turning around, do we still need to keep doing the annual fast we started when the temple got destroyed?  Can we stop that?”  It is like a committee asking leadership, “Now that we’ve recovered, do we still have to do it?”

In this instance, God does not give them a simple answer.  He says, “During these 70 years of exile, when you fasted and mourned in the summer and in early autumn, was it really for me that you were fasting?  And even now in your holy festivals, aren’t you eating and drinking just to please yourselves?”  His point??  The sad and the happy days had become about their own experience, not the actual relationship with Him.

In this passage, the prophet Zechariah offers some generalized instructions for how we are to treat others but also gives a very specific command – “Do not oppress widows, orphans, foreigners and the poor”.

To oppress means to take advantage or victimize.  Way back then it was usually the strong and powerful who oppose the weak and powerless. Based on these actions, God’s response was reciprocal in a way.  “As I called and they wouldn’t listen, so they called and I wouldn’t listen.  The result was a scattered nation and an empty wasteland that nobody could even walk through.

If God spelled out every kind of moral infraction in the Bible, it would be millions of pages long.  Instead, he commands us to practice general fairness and honesty in all we do.  And in those cases when we have power or authority over others, we must take extra care to make sure we treat them as God wants us to.

Religious performance is not a substitute for character.  You can nail every tradition, every fast, every service, and still miss the entire point if it is disconnected from how you treat the vulnerable and whether your heart is still soft enough to take correction.

As we go forward, we must keep all this in mind.  We all have ‘power and authority’ or someone who may be ‘weak and powerless’.  Whether it is an employee, a child, a spouse, a sibling, a parent or someone completely else.  We may not feel like we are POWERFUL or that someone is POWERLESS in certain relationships, but the point is like so many other times, we don’t always and truly know what is going on in someone else’s mind or lives.  And because of that, God is simply trying to remind us to treat EVERYONE as He wants us to.  It is hard.  It may seem impossible at times.  But there are truly no excuses.  He sent his Son to die for all of us on the cross.  Every ‘excuse’ we could ever have was thrown out the window a very long time ago.  From now on, try and think thrice before we fall guilty to becoming the oppressor.

Hebrews Chapter 10

A lot of times people will go back to doing something the old way because they were used to it, or maybe it was just more reliable and it appeared to get the job done right the first time.  Other times a new way comes along.  It might be completely different than before, but it is actually better for everyone at the end of the day.  This is exactly what Hebrews 10 discusses.  Think about it this way.  In the Old Testament, God asked of Moses and his people for all the different sacrifices to be performed and obedience be demanded.  This was never a permanent fix, more like a temporary patch to be reapplied over and over.  Jesus was the actual fix, done once, for good.  And because of that, we don’t have to live like we’re constantly on probation with God.

Think of it like paying rent forever versus buying the house outright.  Year after year, the priests brought the same sacrifices, which was basically an admission that the problem was still there.  The blood of the bulls and goats could cover things temporarily, but it couldn’t actually erase the guilt at the root.

Then Jesus comes along.  He wasn’t sent as just another sacrifice to be made over and over again; He came to actually do the will of God.  His whole life and death are what actually dealt with sin.  Not just another system, but a person.

I was reviewing a random pastor’s notes on this chapter and found some of it interesting.  In the Old Testament, priests never sat down in the temple.  There were no chairs because the work was never finished.  After Jesus was sacrificed, He sat down at God’s right hand. This is a gesture of completion.  The job is done.  Because of what Jesus did, we get direct access to God.  No middleman, no waiting room.

Another way to put it…. Christ is the final redemptive sacrifice.  We can all enjoy the full privileges He has secured.  We have personal access to God through Christ without an elaborate system.  Full assurance of our faith and salvation.  Hope for what the future holds and encouragement from other people of faith.  Through Christ and a community of believers we receive everything we need for spiritual growth.  Sometimes we may find ourselves pulling away from healthy relationships or falling into unhealthy ones or negative situations that undermine our spiritual drive.  This doesn’t mean that we have lost our faith or are stranded on a one-way to Hell, it just means we may be driving down the frontage road along the highway and need to take the next exit to get back on the path that He set forth for us.

Remember, faith isn’t a solo sport.  Show up.  Hold on.  Jesus already sat down – so you don’t have to stand alone!

2 Corinthians 4

Paul’s Letters

God gave us all a new way, a new opportunity, and there is no room for quitters.  We are not messing around with sneaky, manipulative tactics.  No spin or deceit, just the straight truth and everyone else can judge us off that.  If others still cannot see it, it is because the enemy has their blinders on from seeing how amazing Jesus really is.  We weren’t put on this earth to promote ourselves.  Jesus is King.  The same God who flipped a switch and said “let there be light” also made it so the light shines in our hearts so that we could know the glory of God, and that is through Jesus.

If we are not willing to recognize the sin in our lives, we refuse to see the truth and cannot accept the gift of forgiveness that God offers us through a relationship with Jesus.  As we reflect honestly on our lives, God will help us see where we need to change.  Then we can confess our sin and trust Jesus to forgive us to make the needed changes.

Here is the catch…. We are of the most fragile of any living thing to exist.  We are breakable. We don’t see it, but we are all wrapped in “Handle With Care” tape.  But that is also the point.  When something this powerful comes though people this weak, it is obvious the power isn’t coming from us, it is coming from God.  We are pulled in every direction.  We get knocked down but never knocked out.  As others see God’s work in our lives, they may hopefully gain the courage to face and conquer their own sins and areas of weakness with God’s help.

Well, we are not quitting!  Sure, our bodies on the outside tend to dwindle as the years go by, but on the inside we are being renewed every single day.  This hard stuff we go through??  It is actually producing something – a weight of eternal glory so massive it makes the suffering look tiny by comparison.  The key is keeping your eyes on what you can’t see.  Everything you can see is just temporary.  Everything you can’t see is forever.

We may have to wait awhile for God’s eternal blessings, but if we trust Him to help us in this life of decay, we can be sure of his blessing in the future.

My prayer:

Father, when I feel squeezed, confused, and knocked down – remind me that I am not crushed, abandoned, or destroyed.  You are renewing me from the inside out, even when I cannot feel it.

Psalm 73

Asaph’s writing in Psalm 73 is something probably we all experience at least a little bit as part of our daily lives.  He shares with us how he nearly walked away from God because he was constantly seeing arrogant, corrupt people living their best lives.  These people were healthy, wealthy, no problems, no consequences.  Meanwhile, he was doing everything right and still getting beat up by life.  Sound familiar?  “Why do good things happen to bad people” type behavior.  He felt like following God was pointless.

But right before he was about to go public, or go post on social media in today’s way, he held off.  Instead, he went to the sanctuary, he felt a shift.  He got perspective.  Not new information, but perspective.

He realized the wicked aren’t winning, they are standing on thin ice.  Their prosperity is temporary.  The end of it all is always inevitable.  He even looks back on it and calls himself thoughtless for even envying them in the first place.  Like a big, dumb animal that could never understand the bigger picture.

Here we are in 2026 and Asaph’s testimony rings even truer today than ever.  Back then it was either first-hand experience or word of mouth.  It still is that plus tv, cell phones and social media all at our fingertips.  All the celebrities and billionaires you can fathom.  Even the wealthiest of people sometimes in our communities.

Asaph’s story is black and white.  What seems like perfection vs. what is simply imperfection.  From my experience, I certainly never compare myself to Elon, Bezos or the likes of Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson.  Good for those guys.  I wish them the best and hope and pray they do have a relationship with Jesus and are generous to the world with their fame and fortune.  I will never truly get to know them on a deeper level.  I can only speak of the people I actually do rub shoulders with, those I do business with or even my ‘friends’ on social media.  The ones who talk about or post all the time about ‘having it all’.

In today’s reality it is sometimes that feeling you get scrolling through Instagram  or Facebook watching people make up stories and cut corners to make it look like it is all hunky dory.  Meanwhile you are grinding and barely keeping it altogether.

It is then that I find myself going to the sanctuary.  For me that is church on Sundays or those few minutes talking with God before I call it a night.  It is then I am reminded than a ‘perfect life’ doesn’t exist and what matters most is the person who I fold my hands together for and bow my head to.  It really makes me think how miserable my life would truly be had I never have known Him.  Simply put, I would just be another fool like the rest of them.  But fortunately, like Asaph said, ‘How good it is to be near God!’

My prayer is that we never, ever forget how good God is, and that we never stop realizing that He loves us and only ever wants the best for us.

Revelation 4

In Revelation 4, John describes his vision like something from a Black Mirror episode, almost like a different dimension.  A voice says, “Come up here”, and suddenly instead of being on Earth, he is in the throne room of God.

I have heard this room/experience depicted as the most overwhelming, awe-inspiring place.  Kind of like coming up on the Grand Canyon or a pack super bowl stadium with your favorite team playing – then multiply that by infinity!

God is sitting on his throne and John can’t truly paint the picture to us what he sees.  The closest he gets is gemstones and light.  Jasper(clear/crystal) and carnelian(deep red) surrounded by an emerald green rainbow.  More like radiance – a pure, overwhelming, beautiful presence.

Around God’s throne are 24 elders. They are ready to throw their crowns down for every moment that God is praised as a reminder – “whatever authority we have came from Him, and it belongs back to Him”.  In front of the throne, a sea of glass, clear as crystal.  Some believe it is a barrier representing an uncrossable distance.  Others see it as a mirror, reflecting perfect clarity and peace.

Then some super unnatural imagery!  Four creatures, covered in eyes from front to back.  Never stopping, never blinking and representing the highest and best of all creation:

• Lion – wild/majestic(apex of wild animals)
• Ox – strength/service(apex of domestic animals)
• Man – intelligence/dignity(apex of humanity)
• Eagle – speed/freedom(apex of birds)

Bowing before God and constantly saying, “Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty – who was, and is, and is to come.”

The throne room of God is the most powerful place in existence — filled with radiance, lightning, and non-stop worship from every corner of creation. Before God reveals anything about the future, He makes one thing unmistakably clear: He is holy, He is sovereign, and He has always been in control. No matter what’s coming, the throne is never empty.

Isaiah Chapter 46

What do you think of when you hear the term ‘false gods’?  Short answer…..gods that aren’t real.  The word ‘false’ isn’t even the part that makes me think ‘not real gods’.  It is the fact that ‘gods’ is plural and we all know there is only ONE GOD.

Isaiah really drives it home in chapter 46 and what false gods really look like to God himself.  Babylon’s top gods – Bel and Nebo – are so fat, they are being loaded onto animals to be hauled away.  They can’t even move themselves.  The animals almost can’t even handle the weight.  God flips this image completely.  He is saying, I am paraphrasing, “I have been carrying you since you were born.  I’ll keep carrying you when you are old and gray.  I made you. I will sustain you.  I will rescue you.”  God vs. gods is a no brainer.

Then Isaiah refers to the ‘idol’ comparison.  God challenges anyone to compare Him to an idol.  The idol-making process as described by Isaiah: hire a craftsman, melt gold, shape it, set it on a pedestal.  It stands there.  It can’t move.  You cry out to it and you get nothing in return.  It SAVES you from NOTHING.  We still do this today.  We just happen to build our idols out of different materials.  Influence, financial security, relationships, political saviors.  But the same problem exists, when we cry for help, they don’t answer.

Then God calls out those who have strayed.  “Remember this, you guilty ones.  Remember the things I have done.  Remember who I am.”  He announced the end from the beginning!  He is not reacting to history, he is the author of it.  He doesn’t get surprised, what He says happens.  That sounds like the basis for trust to me.

God calls us to reality and truth.  People turn to many things to fill their inner needs.  But anything other than God will fail like an idol that cannot protect itself or its worshipers from captivity.  In contrast, God is the everlasting, sovereign Lord of history who can, and will, do what he says.  Putting our hope in God’s hands is the only way to find true fulfillment.

Other gods are burdens YOU carry.  The God of Isaiah is the one who carries you…and He’s been doing it your whole life.

1 Peter Chapter 2

You know that moment when you open the fridge and you’re hit with that smell? Something expired, something you kept meaning to toss but just kept pushing to the back? Peter opens chapter 2 with exactly that kind of moment. He names it plainly; deceit, hypocrisy, jealousy, unkind speech. That’s the sour milk. And his point isn’t just ‘throw it out’, it’s ‘go replace it’. Get something fresh. Something worth consuming. Because you can’t grow on stuff that is rotten.

Verse 5 says, “He was rejected by people, but he was chosen by God”.  Jesus is the cornerstone, in other words, the anchor of the foundation that God has set forth.  If you build your life on Him, you are secure.  If you ignore Him, you will trip over Him.  Typically if we have tripped, it means we have not obeyed God’s word.

Growing up, my Dad tested me with the ‘game’ called MERCY that I would go on to ‘play’ with my buddies in high school.  You know the one, you lock fingers, twist, bend, apply as much pressure as you can until the other person can’t take it anymore and finally cries out ‘mercy.’ The whole point of the game was to make someone surrender. But here’s what’s funny, the mercy in 1 Peter 2 works completely backwards from that game. Nobody twisted God’s arm. Nobody applied enough pressure to earn it. He just… gave it. Freely. And that changes everything about how we’re supposed to pass it on.  Peter reminds us who we actually are.  We are chosen, God’s very own possession.  Without Him we are nobody, but with Him we receive His mercy.

5 Ways we can show mercy today:

1. See people the way God saw you

2. Don’t Retaliate – Absorb

3. Live well toward people who dismiss you

4. Use your freedom to serve, not to protect yourself

5. Show up for people in low-status moments

The mercy in this chapter isn’t sentimental; it is costly and active.  It cost Jesus everything.  What Peter is describing is a community of people who received something they didn’t deserve and then turned around and passed it on.  Not because people earned it, but because that’s what mercy is.  The most natural place to start is usually the relationship closest to you where it’s hardest to extend.  That’s almost always where the chapter is pointing to.