The Revelation of Jesus Christ 1نموونە

Everyone is on God’s Heart

And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are You to take the scroll and to open its seals, for You were slain, and by Your blood You ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.”

I once worshipped at a church in the Middle East. It was filled with people from all over the world. I was fascinated as people walked into the room from India and Pakistan, from Kenya and Nigeria, from Australia and New Zealand, from Germany and Britain. The church included people from dozens of countries, and I found the environment exhilarating. I thought to myself, this is a microcosm of heaven, where there will be people from every tribe and language and people and nation. 

Though there are only 195 countries in the world, there are about 16,472 distinct groups of people with their own way of thinking and living. It is these groups, not political countries, that are God’s focus in the Bible. For example, when Jesus commissioned His followers, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations” (Matt. 28:19), He was referring to groups of people, not to nation states. He uses a form of the Greek word ethnos, from which we get “ethnic” or “ethnicity.” Jesus commissioned us to go and make disciples of all the groups in the world, all 16,000 or so. 

Every one of these groups of people matters to God. Every one of these groups needs to hear that there is a God in heaven who loves them, and everyone needs to see the glory of Christ proclaimed. Every one of these groups will be represented before God’s throne in eternity, and everyone is on God’s heart. Because all of these people matter to God, they must matter to us as well. Every single one.