Daily Devotional For December 15, 2025
And the nations will walk by its light and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it. Rev 21:24.
The joke is told about a heaven in which the old prejudices of earth are maintained. According to the joke, there is a Baptist heaven, in which there is lots of water and everyone is dunking everyone else in it. There is a Pentecostal heaven, where everyone is raising their hands in the air, dancing around, and falling over. There is Catholic heaven and Adventist heaven and so on. The joke is funny because in our heart of hearts we somehow know that such distinctions will be abolished in heaven. In the New Jerusalem all nations (ethnic groups, denominations, etc.) will live together and will have learned the joyous acceptance that is in Jesus.
In the waning days of apartheid in South Africa, a white pastor was driving home from church after an evening meeting. Half way home on a four-lane highway he rode over hundreds of nails, experienced the consequences, and pulled to a stop. Seconds later two men came out of the darkness and attacked the car with crowbars, trying to force their way into the car. They managed to open one door and slashed the pastor’s wife. The whole time, white members of his congregation were riding past on their way home. Their lives were saved by an old Zulu man who arrived in a beat up, rusted old truck.1
This reminds me of a reworked version of the Good Samaritan parable in Luke. A man was assaulted and left bleeding by the road. He was ignored first by a televangelist and then by the pastor of a nearby megachurch. He was taken to the hospital by a homosexual.
It is interesting how our definition of an outcast changes from generation to generation. The parable of the Good Samaritan does not trouble us as long as we don’t meet any Samaritans! But the prejudice-free future of our text challenges us to take the principle and apply it to whatever circumstance we meet. We tend to be blinded, however, to our own version of the “outcast.” The North Dakotan may be appalled by a white New Yorker’s prejudice against blacks, while holding similar prejudices against Native Americans. The New Yorker’s attitude toward “yokels” from North Dakota may well be the reverse.
Even in the church, we draw differences between people on the basis of how they interpret certain doctrines, how they look when they come to church, where they live, or whether or not they clap their hands after a stirring musical performance. The gospel calls us to anticipate the glories of the New Jerusalem in the way that we treat people today. Jesus accepts us in spite of our own peculiarities. The best way to return the love of Jesus is to treat others the way He has treated us. That principle is at the heart of the life of heaven.
Lord, open my eyes to the hidden prejudices that govern the way I treat others.
1 Email from Michael Pearson, December 6, 2002.