Dave’s Monday Blast – December 11, 2023
Pastor Phil has been walking us through a wonderful series on the light that surrounds the Christmas season. Light and Scripture are beautifully intertwined. In the beginning, after God had created the heavens and the earth, the earth was said to be formless and desolate. The water that covered everything was engulfed in total darkness, but the Spirit of God was moving. The first words we hear our Creator utter are these, “Let there be light”, and God was pleased with what He saw. The first time we observe our Creator act with the Genesis text He is creating light. God separated light from dark. God loves light! God designed us to live in the light. Light is God’s chosen tool to remove us from darkness.
From the beginning, He intended light and dark to be separated. Scripture informs us in John 3:16 – 21 that “The Light”, i.e. Jesus, came into the world as a demonstration of God’s love. In John 8:12 Jesus affirms that He is the “Light of the World” and men do not ever need to walk in darkness. In John 14:6 we read that “Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life.” As we cross reference this verse with John 8:12 we see that “Life and Light” are inseparable. Whoever follows Jesus will not stumble about in darkness, but will be able to follow a lighted path to the source of life.
Men of INTENTION know that we live in the reality that there are both light and darkness around us at all times. This world is comprised of both good and evil, right and wrong. On any given day we are inundated with temptation after temptation, lie after lie, darkness after darkness. And unfortunately, Scripture affirms in John 3:19 “that men love darkness rather than light because darkness hides their evil choices.” In and of ourselves, we have no light. Left to our own devices, we would live our entire lives in darkness, void of that abundance of joy and peace available to us in God. But in the person of Jesus a powerful hope has entered into the story of humanity. Matthew 4:26 says, “The people dwelling in darkness have seen a great light, and for those dwelling in the region and shadow of death, on them a light has dawned.” You and I have a choice to fill our lives with the light of God. We’re delivered from a life marked by darkness and set free to fill ourselves with the things of God.
Next week I want to chat about the light that appeared over and in that Bethlehem stable and how it provides the only path out of darkness.
