Darkness vs. Light

10/11/2011

Weather Report From Heaven: Sunny and bright, with an abundance of light and lots of singing and rejoicing.


Bible Verse of the Day: 1st John 1:5-10 " God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin. If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make Him out to be a liar and His word has no place in our lives."

I remember being in Florida as a kid visiting my grandparents. I think I was about 8 years old at the time. I had never seen a cockroach before until I went to Florida. I went to the refrigerator in the middle of the night onetime to get some orange juice, and when I turned the light on, it was like the Indy 500 of roach racing. Those hideous bugs were running everywhere as fast as they could to escape the light that had rained down upon the darkness they were thriving in. I believe that this illustrates how many of us humans, me included, respond at first when Jesus Christ begins to shine His light into our darkness. We don't like it and we try to run and hide. Why? Because our foolish pride gets in the way! We don't want to change from our sinful ways. We like being masters of our own domain, doing what we want, when we want and with whom we want. We are happy living for self gratification and view any outside influences give up our "rights" as a threat. But this ultimately leads us into sitting in our own quagmire. We soon find out that the rush the world promises never lives up to the hype. As a pastor friend of mine, Gary Stubblefield, once preached "When we deny the power of God in our own lives and try to be our own kings, we quickly find that the enslaving chords of this world begin to grip around us and capture us, and they begin to chip away at our own personal beauty." You see, light and darkness cannot coexist together at the same time. God and sin cannot be present together at the same time. God sent His Son Jesus Christ into the world to shine His light into the darkness, and the world rejected that light. The world was enslaved to the darkness. We humans scattered like roaches, trying to hang on to our sinful ways. But Christ has a way of permeating that darkness with His light and eventually, when we grow tired of trying to do things our way, with our plans and our purposes, He can reach into the fire and pull us out, usually just in time. He is a very patient God and as a Sheppard, He cares deeply about all of His lost sheep. Not all of us will come and that is sad. Those who reject Him are letting their pride make an eternal decision for them that they will regret the second they die and see the disparity between true darkness and eternal light. We grow so rigid in our pride that we forgo the thing that we have been searching for our whole life, that only Christ can bring, and that is lasting inner peace. When we are walking in the light, we are at peace with ourselves and with our lives. It doesn't mean that we won't fall back into the darkness occasionally and make sinful decisions, for that is part of our human nature, but hopefully, we won't stay there for long. We will crave the freedom and the peace we have in the light enough to abandon our previous ways. Paul puts it this way in 2nd Corinthians 5:17 " Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come." That is what the light does to the darkness, it shatters it. To quote a famous song by the Doors and their lead singer Jimmy Morrison, " YOU KNOW THE DAY DESTROYS THE NIGHT, THE NIGHT DIVIDES THE DAY, TRY TO RUN, TRY TO HIDE, BREAK ON THROUGH TO THE OTHER SIDE." The other side of our dark, sinful and prideful nature is a beautiful light in Christ Jesus that breaks us free from our enslaving chords and brings us to a peaceful place where our sins have been forgiven and our heavy burdens are lifted. It took me 38 years to find that truth. It was worth the wait. I finally found something, in Jesus Christ, that lived up to the hype.