God's Book Collection

Reading through the Bible, I’ve discovered that God has quite a collection of books that He is keeping.  These books have been around practically forever, and He makes an entry about every person...past, present, and future.

In Psalm 56:8, David says to the Lord, “You have taken account of my wanderings; put my tears in Your bottle.  Are they not in Your book?”  What a comforting thing to know that God sees our suffering and is concerned about it!

When time has ceased and Judgment Day occurs, more of God’s books will be opened...

“Then I saw a great white throne and Him who sat upon it, from whose presence earth and heaven fled away, and no place was found for them.  And I saw the dead, the great and the small, standing before the throne, and books were opened; and another book was opened, which is the book of life; and the dead were judged from the things which were written in the books, according to their deeds.  And the sea gave up the dead which were in it, and death and Hades gave up the dead which were in them; and they were judged, every one of them according to their deeds.  Then death and Hades were thrown into the lake of fire.  This is the second death, the lake of fire.  And if anyone's name was not found written in the book of life, he was thrown into the lake of fire.”  (Revelation 20:11-15)

God hasn’t revealed all of the details on His book collection in the Bible, but He has given us enough information to know that we want our names written in the “Book Of Life.”  I don’t know exactly when a person’s name is written in this book, but I do know that receiving Christ as your Lord assures that your name is in that book, and rejecting Christ guarantees that your name will not be in that book of life (see Psalm 69:26-28).

Daniel 12:1 says that “there will be a time of distress such as never occurred since there was a nation until that time; and at that time, God’s people, everyone who is found in the book, will be rescued.”  We know that God takes care of His people; and when our earthly life is over, we’ll be with Him in the new heaven and earth that the book of Revelation speaks about...

“I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.  And the city has no need of the sun or of the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God has illumined it, and its lamp is the Lamb.  The nations will walk by its light, and the kings of the earth will bring their glory into it.  In the daytime (for there will be no night there) its gates will never be closed; and they will bring the glory and the honor of the nations into it; and nothing unclean, and no one who practices abomination and lying, shall ever come into it, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's book of life.”  (Revelation 21:22-27)

I pray that your name is in the book of life, and that you’ll live in that blessed assurance!