Love & Light

God’s Story 

Have you ever felt that your failures overshadow the good you have done and desire to do?  When you stare weakness in the face, do you stop and cry?  Knowing how quickly you stumble, does defeat make you pull back from prayer?  And are you too ashamed to approach God in those moments?

We live in a world filled with darkness and light.  There are only two places for us to dwell.  We choose daily whether to enter darkness or stay in the light.

God is Light

In the darkness is where we indulge the desires that get us into trouble.  Much pain comes from the time we spend in the darkness.  Our choices and mistakes in the darkness carry a weight God knows we are not able to bear.

When we know the truth and yet make a choice against truth, guilt works to make us believe that we have failed God, which then makes us believe God doesn’t want us.  This could not be further from the truth.

Somewhere we have learned the idea that darkness, and what is born of darkness, is truth.  The only truth about darkness and the deeds done there is that it has the ability to blind us to reality and the light of true life.

The apostle, John, said, “God is light and in Him there is no darkness at all.” 1 John 5

The Truth Comes to the Light

If there is any truth at all, it is bound in the fact that God is real and He is the One who created all things seen and unseen.  It is our choice to believe that fact or not.  But if we choose not to believe, does that change truth?

The apostle, John, also said, “God is love.” 1 John 4:16 (partial) Is there love in darkness?  I think not.  It must surely be clear we are not talking about the darkness of night but of those things that are contrary to the love and light of God.

It is natural for us to hide in the darkness when we do deeds contrary to the heart of God.  When Adam and Eve, realized they were naked, they hid from God.  The choice of sin was the root of their cause to hide from the God who created them.  The apostle, John, clarified our nature when he said, “For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed.  But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.” John 3:20-21

In Darkness, He is Still There

Beyond the fact that God is love and light, who is He?

God is the Divine Creator.  All things were created by God.  As it says in Genesis, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Genesis 1:1 All of God’s creations are defined in the first chapter of the book of Genesis.  I would encourage you to read it for yourself, but if you are not inclined, then let me sum up that everything you can see and everything you cannot see, was created by God, even to the farthest reaches of the universe.

God is also our Father.  He is our Creator Father.  And more than any other father, He moves in our life to guide our feet into and through the path of life that leads to heaven with Him.

When we walk in darkness, He is still there.  Darkness and light are the same to Him. Psalm 139:12 It is His desire that we stay in the light, but if we should wander into darkness, He urgently wants us to return to the light that is Him.  So, on those days when the weight of darkness and sin strive to keep us from God, His love and light, don’t believe the lie.  God wants you with Him, no matter what is done in the darkness.  Make haste and get back to the light of God.

Those Things Which Are Behind

This truth is born in the fact that God sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to pay the price for sin that we could never pay.  Let me stress this.  We could never pay this price.  While God’s sacrifice and the suffering Jesus Christ endured to give us life are so great, God does not want us stuck at the idea of Jesus’ death for our sins.

Our sins have been nailed to the cross.  They are behind us.  God, in His love and His desire for us to live with Him in light, left them there 2000 years ago, for all time, if we will but believe and accept what Jesus Christ accomplished on the cross.

God does not want us hung up in the past.  That is why He says through the apostle, Paul, “forgetting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Philippians 3:13-14

Washed Us from Our Sins

What does the Christian do then with the gift that Jesus Christ has accomplished?  Hold that gift in the highest regard possible.  It is an eternal treasure that is now a part of us.  Without that gift, we are lost, separated forever from the life God wants us to share.  For each person, as they accept the gift of God’s sacrifice through His Son, Jesus Christ, it will deliver them from the kingdom of darkness to the kingdom of God, then it will become the first treasure that God gives into their hands, to hold in their bosom forever.

“You are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own special people.”  He called you to “proclaim the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His Marvelous light.” 1 Peter2:9

If you have made the choice for Jesus Christ, you are royalty!  You are kings and priests to our God!! The book of Revelation says, “To Him who loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood, and has made us kings and priests to His God and Father, to Him be glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen!” Revelation 1:5-6

He Dealt with Your Sin

So now, because of your status in Jesus Christ and your standing before God the Father, you are pure and holy, undefiled before Him.  Even when you stray in darkness, you are clean in the sight of God.  Yes, there are often consequences for our time in darkness.  But, if you should suffer for your deeds born in darkness, know that they are there to fully train you in the ways of righteousness and not to discourage you or destroy you or to make you feel that God doesn’t want you.  It is quite the opposite.

Here is the crux of who God is.  God wants you to share His love and light with the world.  He wants you to share what Jesus Christ has done in your life.  You are set free from your sin.  God, the Father, has set you free through His Son, because He wants you to live in freedom.  He wants you to live a life that lights up the world!  God doesn’t want you to cling to the past and how He dealt with your sin.  That is a life of bondage to your sin.

In the Power of God

God is love and love is the light God has given us to shine in the darkness of this world.  It is when we stand in love that we live in God, and He dwells in us.

The apostle John said, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” 1 John 4:11

What does this mean for us?  It means we take God’s unconditional love for us and let it live in us and shine through us.  It means we forgive those around us not 7 times, but 70 times 7.  Not on our own power, but in the power of Jesus Christ.  For apart from Jesus Christ, we can do nothing.  As the apostle, Paul, said, “And my speech and my preaching were not with persuasive words of human wisdom, but in demonstration of the Spirit and of power, that your faith should not be in the wisdom of men but in the power of God.” 1 Corinthians 2:4-5

May You Be Presented

Therefore, humble yourselves in prayer.  Pray without ceasing.  Your prayers do not have to be audible; the results will be visible.  And the world will be seen through your eyes of faith which is a treasure that cannot be measured.

It is then, that God is revealed to a dying world, and He is honored as His children lift Him up in and through their lives.

May the Lord grant you peace and protection from the lies that so often engulf us.  May He bless you every day and give you eyes to see and ears to hear what He is saying to you and showing you.  May the Lord give you strength to stand firm in the midst of the chaos of this, our final battle with darkness.  And may you be presented before Him, in heaven, on that day He calls you home.