To the Church in Smyrna
“To the angel of the church in Smyrna write:
These are the words of him who is the First and the Last, who died and came to life again. I know your afflictions and your poverty—yet you are rich! I know the slander of those who say they are Jews and are not, but are a synagogue of Satan. Do not be afraid of what you are about to suffer. I tell you, the devil will put some of you in prison to test you, and you will suffer persecution for ten days. Be faithful, even to the point of death, and I will give you the crown of life.
He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes will not be hurt at all by the second death."
Revelation 2:8-11
The most shocking verse in this section to me is this:
"I know your afflictions and your poverty - yet you are rich!"
When was the last time you looked at "your afflictions and your poverty" and said to yourself, "my spiritual wallet is full because of these." "To God, i am rich in this moment of affliction." It's totally like God to look at the poor and afflicted and see them as wealthy. It's totally unlike us to see ourselves in the same way, the way God sees us.
I'm completely on board with us when we look to God for healing, wholeness, completion, redemption, etc. in any of our situations. But often times, when what we are looking for in our circumstances doesn't happen the way we want or change the way we want, we think we have become "spiritually poor." Or that something's wrong. Or we go as far as thinking that God Himself must be wrong!
But fortunately we have the promise of the "crown of life." I don't necessarily see this as something that is only received when we "get to heaven." I believe that we can wear this crown of life on this side of heaven by persevering through our afflictions that we have now. And by seeing that we become wealthy (crown-wearers if you will) by persevering through the things that seemingly kill us, give us death.
Our first look at Jesus in this passage is one that shows us that He is the one who died and came to life again. If we are to follow Him, we will follow Him all the way to and through death and (back) into life. I once heard a preacher say "You can't have a resurrection without a death." And again, I'm not saying this is a literal death, these are the things that kill little parts of us, greeds, lusts, idolatry, all sorts of evil desires (Colossians 3:5-11). And lastly this is not punishment by any means. If anything it is reward because now we have the opporutnity to see His love in a way that we become zealous and repent (Rev 3:19 ESV).
We all have at least one story where we can look back and say "I'm glad I went through that really bad thing, because now I'm better for it." What Jesus longs for us to see is that in our moment of affliction we can have a "living hope" (I Peter 1:3) through the things we see as affliction.
Are you willing to see your afflictions and poverty as a means to your truest wealth?
