A New Devotion - The Light of the World

Here's a new devotion that I wrote. You can find a recording of this devotion at the bottom of the page.

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Jesus answered, “I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night cometh, when no man can work.

As long as I am in the world, I am the light of the world.” [John 5:3a, 4-5, KJV]

Now this is exactly what Jesus came to be, the light of the world, the light for the entire world. And for us, that can make all the difference. You see, the world around us can seem to be a pretty dark and foreboding place, filled with the kind of shadows and shade that can make moving forward difficult and dangerous. I mean, with all the chaotic voices vying for our attention and the often contradictory values that claim to point the true and only way, it’s challenging to know whom to trust or what to believe. And even though there are many who claim to know precisely where we should go and exactly how to get there, sometimes they seem as confused and frightened as us. Ours is a dark world.

But it’s into this darkness the light has come. You see, because God loves us, he sent his son to show the way, to dispel the shadows, to brighten the shade and to give us direction as we move through the chaos and contradictions. It’s this light in the darkness that enables us to see the path that lies before us and to step forward with clarity and confidence. 

But we shouldn’t deceive ourselves; this is the work of God, how the light entered a dark world. I mean, we’re not the light nor do we determine why and how it comes. This is a gift from God. Of course, when it first came it was more like a spark than a flame. You see, it entered our time and space as one small baby, wrapped in swaddling clothes lying in a manger. As a matter of fact, at first, the light was so faint you could hardly see it, but from that tiny flicker, it started to grow. And even though, throughout history, there have been those who sought to make it go out or to direct its beams, no matter how hard they tried, they couldn’t extinguish or manipulate this light. And so it spread, from a flicker to a flame to a fire that illuminates the entire world. 

It’s the coming of this light that draws us together as God’s people.