Be the Light

  

 In John 1, the Apostle John talks about how Jesus was with God the Father and how He became man to dwell among His creation. Verses 4-5 caught my eye because it goes;

In Him was life and the light was the light of all people. The light shines into the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it. John 1:4-5 NRSV 

   Throughout the Bible and especially in John’s writings, there is this connection between truth and light.  If we are to be in the light or Gods presence, we need to not only know the truth but put it into practice. This passage makes several things clear. The first one is we can’t have truth withou being in the light. In essence, we can not have one with out the other. The second one is that Truth is not subjective. Ultimate truth is the same a century ago, today and forever in the future. This means that Truth is the same in every culture and not based on current fads, feelings or the weather, because those can change on a dime and God and His truth doesn’t. This is what makes Gods truth absolute. For those who have a hard time with absolute truth, how do you deal with gravity. We are going to have gravity no matter if we are in Australia or Northern Minnesota. No matter how well we transfers gravity, airplanes still have to come back to earth. As much as we can go on about truth, absolutes and God being the ultimate light, how do we put it into practice

  In Matthew 5, Jesus tells us that we are the light of the world, and it means several things. The first one is that if we are to be in the light, we can not continuously live in sin or disobedience to God and His commands. When we continuously live in sin, without seeking repentance or to change, it means that we are living in the dark and do not know God or His grace. This means we care about our own motives and desires more than Gods. It means that it is am about me . 

Secondly, since God is calling us to be the light of the world, it means that we are His representatives to a world that is hurting, lost and even in chaos. How many of us gone walking at night without a flashlight? When we do this, we can not see where we are going and we are liable to get lost, trip, fall and get hurt. When we are in the dark we have a hard time seeing the path and our judgement is distorted. When we are light of the world we are lighting others people’s path and showing them true reality and not something that is distorted.

In essence, when we are being the lighthouse and God is the lamp, we re providing a warning during a storm or rough seas and we often point people to safety which is Gods love and grace. So here is a question, what is the pint of a lighthouse when the sun is out and the waters are calm? God calls us to be a lighthouse or the light of the world because the world is a dark place filled with chaos due to sin and stupidity. Being the light brings peace, understanding and discernment, all we need to do is trust God and walk in light and goodness while sharing it with others