The True Light!

(John 3:21) “But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God."

Who is it we really depend upon? That question needs no verbal answer! All we need to do as we have often said is to look in the mirror as the retort stares us square in the face. If we don’t like what we see we could dim the lights, we then may hide some of our flaws but then we would not see as clearly. What is better, low light, hiding the creases and wrinkles of life which is obviously more flattering on the flesh, or sharp bright light which exposes every flaw, even the smallest of blemishes now highlighted. As a photographer, I will always look for the softest light when shooting a picture, it is always more flattering on my subject. It hides unwanted blemishes! Wildlife is something I love photographing, but to get the best images you only have an hour each side of sunrise and sunset in which to work, in order to optimise the best light and then you hope it isn’t overcast. We call that portion of the day, magic hour! I wonder why? The answer once again is obvious! Even a Hyena as ugly as it is on the eye is beautiful to behold in the right light. Magic, that is exactly what we all look for and not only photographers; I speak as a man who reasons according to the flesh. We spend time on our appearance to look as good as we can and a comment that is often thrown at me with camera in hand, “I hope you are going to make me look good” and I often reply, “The camera never lies”. We have been so conditioned; we hanker after lies without even knowing it. We use dappled light, a soft box or even the right angle to hide the flaws on peoples face when capturing a portrait. We mask things in our lives to hide our blemishes from others, BUT we can hide nothing from God as He sees all!

Now that we have the Spirit of God that lives within us, that is if you have been born again, we can either reason with our carnal eyes or with the eyes of the Spirit, which would be to our eternal benefit. Nevertheless we are left with a daily choice. The Word of God, the Lord Jesus is the true light of the world. What will we do? Will we look for magic light that if full of trickery and deceit or look for the true light to shine into our lives and expose our imperfections? I trust the latter will become more of our daily routine than the day before! It must be that way, if we are to please God our Father. There is a throne room of grace available to every child of God that we are allowed to draw from. No measure will be withheld from us, but we must seek it out with an earnest anticipation.

Whatever we have a yen for will give us our answer. If we look for continuous soft light hiding the blemishes in our lives from others then the flesh rules our lives. We are not walking in the Spirit and the more we live there the less effective we will be for God. But when we look to the Word of God as blinding as it may be at times, it brings forth fruit in our lives, bring glory to our God. Job was a man that God was not ashamed to call out before Satan and although he suffered extreme hardship, he never cursed God but honoured him even through his testing time. He welcomed the true light from heaven. It is a painful fixation when God exposes the sin in our lives but it is needful. May our cry be, shine Lord Jesus shine! We know that in the end it will be advantageous for all who walk in the Spirit and look to live with this as their lifetime ambition. Hard it will be on the flesh but it will be glorious in heaven and for eternity. The Apostle Paul had this to say; “For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.” (Romans 8:18)

It would be good for us to learn to live in the true light for when we get home our heavenly abode will be full of light, in fact no darkness will ever dwell there.

Signing off

Tyrone