Resilient – A Revelation Daily Devotional – Day 10
Cedar Creek Church August 6, 2025

Day 10 – August 6

Read or listen to the audio version of the Bible Reading and Daily Devotional.

Read Revelation 2:18-29

To the Church in Thyatira
18 “And to the angel of the church in Thyatira write: ‘The words of the Son of God,  who has eyes like a flame of fire, and whose feet are like burnished bronze.
19 “‘I know your works, your love and faith and service and patient endurance, and that your latter works exceed the first. 20 But I have this against you, that you tolerate that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess and is teaching and seducing my servants to practice sexual immorality and to eat food sacrificed to idols. 21 I gave her time to repent, but she refuses to repent of her sexual immorality. 22Behold, I will throw her onto a sickbed, and those who commit adultery with her I will throw into great tribulation, unless they repent of her works, 23and I will strike her children dead. And all the churches will know that I am he who searches mind and heart, and I will give to each of you according to your works. 24 But to the rest of you in Thyatira, who do not hold this teaching, who have not learned what some call the deep things of Satan, to you I say, I do not lay on you any other burden. 25 Only hold fast what you have until I come. 26 The one who conquers and who keeps my works until the end, to him I will give authority over the nations, 27 and he will rule them with a rod of iron, as when earthen pots are broken in pieces, even as I myself have received authority from my Father. 28And I will give him the morning star. 29 He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.’

Compromise always makes a relationship easier, right? Absolute statements like that are tough to find places where they actually apply universally. Sure, on the one hand, in our fallen earthly relationships, we must compromise and practice mutual sacrifice for the relationship to prosper. But what of our relationship with God? God does not compromise. He is immutable. That fact alone creates some wrinkles in the idea that flourishing relationships are always built upon compromise.

God does not ask for compromise; He demands surrender. To follow Christ is to leave everything else behind. Man, that may seem difficult and a bit unfair to human sensibilities, but it is the demand nonetheless.

Jesus’s fourth message, to the church at Thyatira, is expert in this subject matter. This church is excelling in both knowledge and deed, but they have permitted false doctrines into their teaching and lives. Specifically, the notion that a Christ-follower can exist in some type of “both/and” relationship to the depravity around them – “I can follow Jesus and be equally a part of the culture around me.”

This issue is further compounded due to the economic structuring of trade in and around Thyatira. To be a member of this economic system seemingly required belonging to trade guilds. These guilds likely regularly gathered, dined on meat offered to idols, and participated in the drunken, sexual perversion that was rampant at that time. The question pressed to the surface for this church, and for many of us today, is: What does it look like to follow Jesus in a culture that is not? Furthermore, what sacrifice will we make to follow Him?

Make no mistake, for those originally reviewing this letter, this is a much more costly undertaking than losing favor with peers. For many, this meant sacrificing the ability to pull up a seat at the day’s economic table. It was a monetary, temporal security, and status sacrifice, but following Jesus seemingly always entails those things. Why?

We have an innate ability and desire to compartmentalize life. “Jesus can have this, but I will keep that.” In doing so, we make whatever the “that” is we are not willing to hand Him the true lord of our life. Resiliency for a Christ-follower is not found in the number of plates we can keep spinning, but in the number we can hand over to Christ. The promise He makes to Thyatira, and to us, is that in place of whatever it is we hold to, we can hold to Him. I try my very best to cherish and protect my family and finances, but make no mistake, Jesus will always be a much better provider and arbiter than I.

Pray: Lord, help me identify where I am unfaithful in my love for you. Spirit, help me continually monitor and battle against the idols I create.