Life can seem pretty humdrum at times. Between rushing to eat lunch on a quick break, getting stuck in traffic on your way to work, or changing dirty diapers for the ten-thousandth time, it may seem like there's nothing truly transcendent. However, the authors of the Bible made it clear that when they encountered God, they were face-to-face with someone whose nature was truly "other" from their experience of everyday life. This is God's holiness.

What's more: God loves you too much to leave you how you are. If you love him, then he plans to make you holy too!

God's goodness is seen in a multitude of ways. He gives of himself to the benefit of others (love), but he also is kind to us when we are in distress (mercy), forgiving of us even when we repeatedly offend him (grace), and he endures those offenses as he waits for us to repent and run back to him (patience).

You couldn't invent a better God: how wonderful that our loving God is good in every way!

Is it possible that you've already gotten the mark of the beast but didn't realize it at the time? Is the mark social security? Is it credit cards? What about some kind of vaccine?! The answer to all of these is "probably not," but then what on earth really is the mark of the beast? To answer that, we have to dig into some good hermeneutics for apocalyptic literature.

Strap on your seatbelts, we're talking about Revelation and it can get a bit weird.