Category: Light of the world

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12.4.24. Jesus is the LIGHT

Psalm 139 tells us a truth that we need to attend to. Examine me Lord. Show me just as You showed John to the 7 churches. You see all, nothing is hidden from your sight just as a lighthouse has a beam of light to alert the sailor to the shoals and dangerous rocks as it swivels around. As God’s light swivels around he reveals to us our lack of holiness, our lack of understanding, our pride in thinking we can navigate this life apart from him. But as His light swivels around and reveals the rocks that are before us that are dangerous , rocks like untamed words, untamed motives, untamed directions and yet God knows what we will do with what we see. Some men see but refuse to acknowledge. Some men see and reroute to avoid the catastrophe that could take their life. And yet in His loving way he allows us to choose which route we will take. 

Paul told the captain and the centurion to not set out from the safe harbor but they refused. the result was the Perfect Storm to show them that Paul was His servant. Again they thought just emptying the cargo would save them but it only caused the ship to drift ever closer to the rocks. In the end, the ship was lost but the men were saved. God allows the Perfect storms to come into our lives so we may set our course towards a safe harbor and when there to remain there until the weather changes. What lessons did those 276 persons learn …not one was lost…did they then realize that God is the one who ordered that storm to show His power, His presence, His perfect understanding of men’s hearts?

What about me? Am I looking at the Lighthouse which is Christ? Am i navigating the perilous waters around me which hold the rocks of destruction?

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11.1.24.Shorter Days

God is Light

John 1 Creator to Creation

Next week we will turn our clocks back one hour and the change will be noted. The days are getting shorter and the light is diminished for a time.  Even in this we marvel at the change of seasons and the shortened days. Listen, blessed reader: In the beginning the world was without form and was void of any giving life or light. He, the Creator spoke, let there be light! And the light was given.  Light is one thing we need to be sustained moment by moment. What a gift of the Creator to us the created. How do we respond? 

The Creator left heaven and came to a spiritually darkened world that He had created, but as He walked and talked among them, they didn’t even notice! How about us? Do we notice the Light, the true Light from heaven? But, so they would be without excuse, the Creator sent His messenger to this darkened world, John the Baptist.  He was sent to introduce and speak a Life Giving Message so all might believe in HIM. “But to all who have received him—those who believe in his name—he has given the right to become God’s children.” 

Where are you today? Are you still wandering in the dark or are you walking in the Light, the Holy One of Israel? 

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The Majesty of God

Psalm 104 The Lord God Almighty 

When we believe that God spoke His truth through the Bible, our lives are anchored upon a solid foundation of God’s power, perspective and purpose.

Over and over the writers of scripture remind us that God is light and in Him there is no darkness. Darkness is a picture of sin and God is pure with no sin. Light reveals what darkness cannot. It reveals purity and righteousness and holiness. The psalmist reaches back into Genesis and the creation to share his thought of how holy and pure and righteous God is. 

The Apostle John wrote that “Now this is the gospel message we have heard from him and announce to you: God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all.”[1 John 1:5] Are we proclaiming that truth to others? Are we praising God for His creation? “O Lord my God, you are magnificent.You are robed in splendor and majesty.He covers himself with light as if it were a garment.” [Ps 104:1 and 2] 

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Often Lives Speak Louder than a Voice

The lives speak

Hebrews 11 to 13 Others Tell the Story of Faith

Long ago in a faraway land, isn’t that how fairy tales begin? Yes, they often do, but this is not a fairy tale! It actually did happen long ago in a land far away, and the voices of those in the story tell a story of faith, not by words but by their lives. They hope you will embrace their story for yourself. 

In Hebrews 11, the faith chapter, the author wants you to know the real Christmas story as told, not by words, but by the lives of Abel, Enoch, Noah, and others. Each one says, I never saw Christ or touched Him or heard his voice, but I believed by faith. Like Abraham, God took that as my confession and counted me, just as him, righteous. [Rom 4:3]

Christ was the light that came into the world and centuries later, the Apostle Paul added that this light “died for our sins according to the scriptures; he was buried, and he rose again the third day according to the scriptures.” [1Cor 15:3-4] Peter too shared. “You do not see him now but you believe in him, and so you rejoice with an indescribable and glorious joy…”[1Peter 1:8-9]

They all were telling about the Christ Child who was and is the Messiah. Their story is true and not a fairy tale. Our prayer is that you also join them and believe by faith this Christmas so God can call you righteous.

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Are you Spiritually Blind?

Are you spiritually blind or free?

John 9 and 10 The blind is made to see the “seeing” remain blind.

Will the religious leaders relinquish their man-made rules to believe? The disciples ask if the man sinned or his parents caused his blindness. Neither was the cause, but he “is” blind so that the works of God might be made manifest and cause men to choose the correct answer to this question: “Dost thou believe on the Son of God?” KJV. [Jn 9:35]

The blind man obeyed the instructions of Jesus after receiving the “mud bath” and the “water bath,” and now is seeing. You would think others would stand up and praise God for this miracle but not so. Instead, he is tossed to and fro between his parents, neighbors, and religious leaders. Indeed Solomon was correct to say; the fear of man holds men. They fear men more than God. [Prov 29:25] Truly as Jesus said, they now remain in their sinful state. Jesus is the “Light” of the world, and He is the “Door.” Do you believe this?

 Spiritual Truth: Some are more comfortable in their sin than in the light of seeing spiritual truths.

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God’s Silence is Broken—a Message of Hope!

God so loved...

“Every scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the person dedicated to God may be capable and equipped for every good work.” [2Tim 3:16, 17]

 Luke 1 and John 1:1-14 It has been 400 yrs. of silence since heaven spoke, yet in His perfect time; God spoke again that the people might know that His plan was still effectual and present, perfectly time just for you!

Years before Luke and John wrote, the prophet Zechariah had seen eight visions for a discouraged people to remind them that His love was everlasting and why He had been faithful to them. [Jer. 31:3] Fast forward 400 yrs., and God sends another message of love and plan to a discouraged people through a priest named (ironically) Zechariah as he ministered at the altar of incense. This Zechariah listens but questions, unlike the prophet Zechariah of 400 yrs. ago! Gabriel, the angelic messenger, says that you will be silent because you did not believe until God’s plan comes to pass. 

Do we question God’s plan when we hear His voice? Beloved, God loves so much that His plan is perfect, and His timing is perfect and He sends His message of love to you who may be discouraged today.   

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Where is Your Decapolis?

Jesus is our Light

Mark 4 to 6 The demoniac freed from his prison desired to follow Jesus, much like the blind Bartimaeus, but this is not the time. Jesus needs the “man freed from demons” to be left behind to go and proclaim what the Lord had done for him. Obediently he did, and all marveled. The herders in the region of Gadarenes may have asked Jesus to leave, but God’s message must be proclaimed. He removed the evil influence so he could be his missionary, ready to go and tell.  Jesus is not wanted, but the message of who He is needed.

The demoniac will always be known as the “man freed from demons” and will be the first missionary to carry the “LIGHT” to his pagan land. The swine herders did not want to hear the good news of the kingdom, for they “loved the darkness rather than the light because their deeds were evil,” however, God had a love message that needed to be shared, and who better to do it than one through whom the LIGHT pierced the darkness.

Today spiritual darkness hangs like a pall over our culture, but we have the LIGHT within us. Where is your Decapolis that needs the Light of the World to come and pierce their darkness?

You have been redeemed to be His witness. How are you doing on this task? 

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Is your light under a bushel?

Ps 22 & Ps 78 The psalmist says we are to tell the next generation about the Lord and his saving deeds and what he has accomplished. We can’t pass that job off onto the preacher or the missionary because the psalmist says, “we” will tell. Jesus said to “go and tell.” How many of us are like those who say, “my faith is personal, I don’t share it, I just live it?  Jesus left us a commandment: go and make disciples. That means we do just that; we tell about God’s saving grace.

Do we realize that God will hold us accountable for lives who would have chosen Jesus had they had heard the gospel message? The psalmist says to tell the next generation so that the truth will be heard from us to the next generation.   They need to hear from our lips the truth of the gospel message. We also need to do that so that they will not be lost and without hope.

Psalm 78:6 says to tell the next generation, and they, in turn, will tell the next generation about Jesus. If each generation carries on this tradition, imagine how many souls will hear the gospel? And in contrast, if we don’t tell how many souls will enter a Christ-less eternity because we have failed in our responsibility?

Today I challenge you to tell someone about Jesus.

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