John 3:19-21 The Message
19-21 “This is the crisis we’re in: God-light streamed into the world, but men and women everywhere ran for the darkness. They went for the darkness because they were not really interested in pleasing God. Everyone who makes a practice of doing evil, addicted to denial and illusion, hates God-light and won’t come near it, fearing a painful exposure. But anyone working and living in truth and reality welcomes God-light so the work can be seen for the God-work it is.”
The Word of God for the Children of God.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, Amen.
Christians in Crisis – Preferences for Running to the Darkness?
English cleric William Farrar wrote, “I am only one, but I am one; I cannot do everything, but I can do something. What I can do, I ought to do. And what I ought to do, by the grace of God, I will do.”
Reverend John Wesley founder of Methodism famously wrote: “Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, in all the places you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as ever you can.”
What amount of “everything possible whenever possible” can one person do?
Biblically, A whole lot.
The Bible tells the story of one woman who was determined to save a nation.
Esther may not have been the first woman people would have imagined for this assignment – but for such a time as it was, a mounting darkness was coming.
After she won a beauty contest, she became queen in the Medo-Persian Empire.
And in that position of influence, Esther, who was Jewish, discovered that her people faced a serious threat.
Because Mordecai would not bow to him, a wicked and self serving man named Haman had devised a plot to exterminate every Jewish person in the empire.
Queen Esther considered appealing to King Xerxes on behalf of her people.
But by doing so, she would be risking her own life.
The king could have her executed for approaching him without his invitation.
But her cousin Mordecai sent her a message, which said,
“Don’t think for a moment that because you’re in the palace you will escape when all other Jews are killed. If you keep quiet at a time like this, deliverance and relief for the Jews will arise from some other place, but you and your relatives will die. Who knows if perhaps you were made queen for just such a time as this?” (Esther 4:13-14 NLT).
In other words,
“Esther, God doesn’t depend solely on you. But He can use you in a powerful way. Will you step up?”
Esther did, and as a result, the Jewish people survived.
One person stepped forward at great risk to their lives, made a difference.
John 3:16-18 The Message
16-18 “This is how much God loved the world: He gave his Son, his one and only Son. And this is why: so that no one need be destroyed; by believing in him, anyone can have a whole and lasting life. God didn’t go to all the trouble of sending his Son merely to point an accusing finger, telling the world how bad it was. He came to help, to put the world right again. Anyone who trusts in him is acquitted; anyone who refuses to trust him has long since been under the death sentence without knowing it. And why? Because of that person’s failure to believe in the one-of-a-kind Son of God when introduced to him.
Some weeks ago I was reading a lengthy devotional from Genesis 3 (about Adam and Eve’s fall into sin).
In it, a little girl, while picking noisily at her dinner plate with her fork, had whispered to her mother, “Mommy, can’t Adam and Eve go to heaven now?”
She understood that something very serious had happened, and she wondered if anything or anyone could undo the damage the darkness had done on that day.
Though as young as she was, she wisely asked her mother the right question:
Could anyone pick up the pieces of a creation threatened by growing darkness?
Were we too accustomed to being helpless, accepting our helplessness, in the towering presence, greater power and overwhelming strength of the darkness?
Or are we faced with the dilemma of an old nursery rhyme:
“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall;/ Humpty Dumpty had a great fall./ All the king’s horses and all the king’s men/ couldn’t put Humpty together again.”
What no one else could do against the brokenness and darkness ushered in by sin, in one matchless moment, God did by sending his Son, the Lord Jesus.
Through his coming, his birth, life, death and resurrection Jesus ushered in the kingdom of heaven, and by fully believing in him we can enter that kingdom.
But IF we WILL walk in the Light as He is in the Light …
1 John 1:6-7 The Message
6-7 If we claim that we experience a shared life with him and continue to stumble around in the dark, we’re obviously lying through our teeth—we’re not living what we claim. But if we walk in the light, God himself being the light, we also experience a shared life with one another, as the sacrificed blood of Jesus, God’s Son, purges all our sin.
There is a great contrast between a life that is being lived in the darkness and one that is being lived in the light, a point that John expounds upon in his text.
As life in the darkness is not indicative of Him, it can also be said that the life in the light is one that is lived in Him.
John continues with his imagery of walking, indicating that living with the light, who is God, is a chosen lifestyle.
Because it is a lifestyle that is founded in Him, it is a life that reflects Him.
It shines light outward into the lives of others, confronting, challenging the darkness by exposing truth to those who come in contact with a Christian.
John further reveals that the lifestyle is also characterized by something more.
It is a lifestyle of continuous fellowship, one of worship, one of diligent study and prayer, one of John’s major emphases in these first verses of his writing.
John also further extends the idea that connection and fellowship with others is related to connection and fellowship with God.
Apart from Him, no true fellowship can exist.
As light is necessary for the nourishment and growth of all things, God is necessary for the nourishment and growth of people.
Any connectional relationship absent this light will not ever blossom into any relationship that is founded in true Christ like love, including not only kindness and companionship, but also true accountability, responsibility, and discipline.
And thus, because there is no blossoming, no fruit will be produced, something evident in the life of a true Christian (cf. John 15:1-8).
The Vine and the Branches
15 1-3 “I am the Real Vine and my Father is the Farmer. He cuts off every branch of me that doesn’t bear grapes. And every branch that is grape-bearing he prunes back so it will bear even more. You are already pruned back by the message I have spoken.
4 “Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me.
5-8 “I am the Vine, you are the branches. When you’re joined with me and I with you, the relation intimate and organic, the harvest is sure to be abundant. Separated, you can’t produce a thing. Anyone who separates from me is deadwood, gathered up and thrown on the bonfire. But if you make yourselves at home with me and my words are at home in you, you can be sure that whatever you ask will be listened to and acted upon. This is how my Father shows who he is—when you produce grapes, when you mature as my disciples.
Finally, because one who walks in the light is defined as one who is a child of God, they can experience the cleansing power of the blood of Christ.
In the Old Testament, blood was connected to purification, and thus is seen often in the sacrifices (Leviticus 16:30; Hebrews 9:21-22).
Now, in the New Testament sense, the blood is connected with Christ’s atoning sacrifice, which fulfills God’s requirements for the punishment of sin allowing for believers to be declared ‘acquitted’ of charges.
This does not mean that one does not still battle with sin.
Currently we still live in the flesh and thus battle with it.
However, it does mean that one no longer needs to fear separation from God as a result of that sin.
Therefore, You, too, can make a difference.
So make the decision to be the godly representative that Jesus called you to be.
Removing the Buckets off from the tops of our heads
Matthew 5:14-16 The Message
14-16 “Here’s another way to put it: You’re here to be light, bringing out the God-colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. We’re going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light-bearers, you don’t think I’m going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I’m putting you on a light stand. Now that I’ve put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand—shine! Keep open house; be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you’ll prompt people to open up with God, this generous Father in heaven.
We live in a dark world where people are comfortable existing in darkness.
Too many people enjoy their darkened hidden places, their secret places.
They have become PhD’s accustomed to 5 star living and being in the dark.
But take the buckets off of their existence?
After the capture of the Bastille in 1789, a story emerged about a prisoner who had been confined to a dark, dingy dungeon for years.
When he was released and led outside into the Paris sunlight, he begged to return to the darkness of his prison cell.
His eyes could not endure the sun’s brightness.
His only desire was to die in the very darkness where he had been a captive.
That is how a lot of people are today.
They live in darkness, and they are comfortable there.
Their eyes , their hearts, souls and lives are too accustomed to the darkness.
They see no purpose to trying to become accustomed to the light of the day, the light of salvation in Jesus Christ alone through whom darkness is made null and void and completely helpless and powerless.
But the Bible says that when we come to Christ, we “turn from darkness to light and from the power of Satan to God” (Acts 26:18 NLT).
Almost certainly everyone knows somebody who is too accustomed to the dark.
Almost everyone knows someone who is just too afraid to open their eyes to the light – too much pain. no heart desire, no motivation, no empowerment either.
We need to share the light, shine the light of Jesus Christ into our dark world.
We must take it more seriously than a widow making heart attack and seek to make even a .01% difference in our culture wherever we go, whenever we can.
You make a difference.
Be a difference maker
Be the difference maker.
You have a strategic and important part to play.
Never doubt your ability to make a difference and to actually be a difference.
In the name of God, the Father and God the Son and God the Holy Spirit,
Let us Pray,
Psalm 139:23-24 The Message
23-24 Investigate my life, O God,
find out everything about me;
Cross-examine and test me,
get a clear picture of what I’m about;
See for yourself whether I’ve done anything wrong—
then guide me on the road to eternal life.
Questions to pray over: dare to ask the following questions of yourself:
- What darkness dwells in me?
- How much time and effort do I devote to embracing and loving my darkness?
- What am, how much am I sacrificing to remain in my embrace of my darkness?
- What am I afraid of God is going to find within my dark and secret places?
- What am I afraid of about God? Why am I afraid of God? Condemnation?
- Spend some time in prayer asking God to humble you so that you can accurately look at your life. Dwell a bit on things and see if there are recurring areas that may exist and add those to your list as well.
- Take an opportunity to thoroughly examine yourself and identify those areas of darkness in your life that cannot exist with God. Perhaps make a list, pray over them, confess them, and be free of them.
Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Ghost; as it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen, Amen.
Loving God, Living God, Loving Hope, Living Hope, Loving Living Life His Way! "Many things are possible for the person who has hope. Even more is possible for the person who has faith. And still more is possible for the person who knows how to love. But everything is possible for the person who practices all three virtues." - Brother Lawrence (1605-1691), Practicing the Presence of God (1692). 