invitation

It’s the happiest of all possible endings. We started this year in Genesis, with the creation of God’s image bearers as the crowning achievement of his creation. We read through the fall, and the slow, steady working out of God’s plan to restore us to full fellowship with him. We watched the sacrifice of the Lamb of God, and traced the growth of Jesus’ baby church.

And now, in the end, in one of the final verses of the entire Bible, we read this, in Revelation 22:17: “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come!’ Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.”

That’s the whole point. It’s the reason for everything that has happened since the beginning. After everything, all the ups and downs, all the good intentions followed by failure, every realization that this is just too hard and we can’t do it, it’s just that simple in the end. The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.”

Simple, because Jesus did it all. It’s a call to me, and you, and every thirsty soul in the world. Jesus lived and died and rose again to make it possible, and we should see from that just how much God wants us back. It’s fair to say that I have never desired God as desperately as he longs to save me. 

The Bible is a long book, but it and the entire history of the world since amount to the same thing: an invitation. The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And, like a child called in at bed time, I want to shout back, “Coming!”