“Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.’” John 8:12.
This post is intended to be an addition to the last post, “I AM the Light, John 8:12” posted on 10-15-17.
Some have taken Jesus’ declaring Himself to be the light of the world as something familiar to the Pharisees. In their arrogance the Jewish doctors and rabbis called themselves “the light of the world” or lamp or some such variation; they also referred to Moses or the Law of Moses as such.
It is thought by some that it was Christ’s intention to identify Himself with such titles. While thought provoking, it is unlikely that He had any such intent.
When viewing the response the Pharisees gave to the Lord’s statement, the greater likelihood is that His words were meant to bring to mind the fact that the Jews recognized their God as a God of light.
“For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord will give grace and glory; no good thing will He withhold from those who walk uprightly.” Psalm 84:11.
“But to you who fear My name the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings; and you shall go out and grow fat like stall-fed calves.” Malachi 4:2.
When we realize that Jesus means, I am the light of the world, the creator of everything created, the designer of both the physical laws governing the cosmos, and designer of the spiritual laws that govern mankind.
It also means that I AM capable of showing whosoever will come to Me, how to live harmoniously in my creation. We understand that Jesus is not a light, He is the light.
Light as opposed to what; well, light as opposed to darkness. Obviously it is not real light and darkness, yet anyone who has been around when the stadium lights went out at midnight; or seen the headlights of a car in the pitch black; or turned the lights out in a remote farmhouse or cabin, knows the dark.
In the prior study we have seen that sin is deceitful, and slowly surrounds us until it swallows us up. Even the Christian is not immune to the deceitful lusts that we harbor within our own souls.
Like a hot tub of water, we grimace as we slowly sit. Then relaxing, we become used to it and more hot water is added, and yet more, and still more until we are beet red but not in pain.
What would it be like if we were plunged into a tub of water as hot as this has become?
Over the last sixty or seventy years this country has become darker and darker indeed, much as the hot water was added slowly, so evil has become acceptable, putting out what little light there was, until we are now almost in complete darkness morally.
Do not get me wrong, perverse men like to point to the many horrific things that have been done in this country and say that socialism will correct these injustices and bringing in righteousness and equality for all; that Christianity is a failure.
Not so, these same perverse men have always been with us and it is their forefathers who allied themselves with the darkness and in their murderous greed perpetrated all of the evil deeds of slavery, bigotry and robbing the worker of his earned wages.
Things like working coal miners 12 hours a day six days a week for a pittance.
Ungodly men in their greed continually robbed the Sioux and Pawnee nations of their land, including the infamous Trail of Tears inflicted upon the Cherokee, to name a few.
Their ungodly children now accuse of evil the founding fathers and other good men who from the year 1620 to the recent past have led this country with God and the people in mind.
The problem is, and always has been, that too often good men have not been vigilant enough or strong enough to withstand the greedy powers of evil.
So, yes, the good must share the blame for national wrongdoing, but it would be much less egregious if the righteous had been more vigilant.
And now Christians, having been immersed in the hot tub syndrome, have given control over to the ungodly who have promised to lift the country out of the very things they have created.
And being no different than their predecessors, we can expect only the same or worse for our future.
“Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither.” Paraphrase of a Ben Franklin quote.
Still, it is up to the individual Christian to follow Jesus, “He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness”, and it is up to the individual Christian to determine to follow Jesus.
We all spend most of our time just trying to function in this world, which is a pity since if the unsaved would come to the light and accept Christ as savior many of their fears would be laid by the wayside immediately. And more would fall away over time as they began to trust Christ as Lord of their life.
The same would happen with the Christian if they would stop trying to figure out how to deal with the society they live in on their own, as if there were no tools at their disposal.
It is time to turn to Scripture for that enlightenment.
While it is true that the Christian has the Holy Spirit dwelling within them, and that can be enough, the word of God augments the working of the Spirit in that the Spirit uses God’s own words to guide you.
The power of three things cannot be minimized; your willing heart, the word of God in your heart and the Holy Spirit to bring those words to life within you.
Granted there are many things that have been built into your life, both scars and habits that are not just going to go away, even with these tools, but you will be better able to cope while they are being removed; which is better than having to live with them without hope.
By these three things we walk in the light, a willing heart, the word of God, and the Holy Spirit’s leading, in this manner the evil weight of continuing sin falls by the wayside as we journey on.
“Now the works of the flesh are evident, which are: adultery, fornication, uncleanness, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, revelries, and the like; of which I tell you beforehand, just as I also told you in time past, that those who practice such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.” Galatians 5:19-21.
“For we have spent enough of our past lifetime in doing the will of the Gentiles – when we walked in licentiousness, lusts, drunkenness, revelries, drinking parties, and abominable idolatries. In regard to these, they think it strange that you do not run with them in the same flood of dissipation, speaking evil of you. They will give an account to Him who is ready to judge the living and the dead.” 1 Peter 4:3-5.
Do you see yourself in any of these things? I see myself in some of them, even today, and many more from my past.
Christians are always a work in progress; do not let anyone tell you differently. But consider the thing or things that popped out at you as you read them; had you noticed them before?
Do you feel strongly about what you noticed? That would be the Holy Spirit working through the Scriptures to point out a blind spot in your life.
Do you have a willing heart? Are you willing to let the Spirit of God change you?
“If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar, and His word is not in us.” 1 John 1:8-10.
There is a lot in these three verses and I invite you to write them down and put it where you can see it, and consider the words carefully.
For now, let me draw your attention to the phrase, “If we confess our sins”, this is the crux of the matter; when we recognize our sin, we must confess it immediately.
If we do, does that mean that we will not tell another lie, pass on more gossip, or get blind drunk again? Nope. But it does mean that we are on our way to changing a destructive behavior. Or rather that God can work in us to eradicate that sin.
Can you see now how important knowing the Scriptures is to your own wellbeing and how the Spirit uses these words to bring you to maturity as a Christian?
“…till we all come to the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ; that we should no longer be children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, in the cunning of craftiness by which they lie in wait to deceive, but, speaking the truth in love, may grow up in all things into Him who is the head – Christ – from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love.” Ephesians 4:13-16.
The Christian is not meant to accept Christ as their savior and then stumble through this dark world until they die.
Christians are meant to grow in maturity and take their part in the body of Christ and become a functioning member of it, for the glory of God; for the sake of the next generation and as a light in the world.
This is what it means to “have the light of life.”
The Light of the World, John 8:12 taken from godisrevealed.com posted on 11-27-12
Scripture taken from the New King James Version, copyright 1982 by Thomas Nelson, Inc. Used by permission, all rights reserved.