God is light - Jeremiah's Vow

Lent 2022 | Day 3: Light

One of the many challenges we face in faith is learning to trust God.

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
James 1:17 KJV

God is light. The very notion of this strikes us as confusing. The reason is that as people with bodies the idea of our bodies giving off light makes no sense. And yet this is one of the key descriptors of God’s being given to us in Scripture. What are we to make of it?

Even if we were to accept that God is light in a literal sense we should not be surprised by this. For God is purity itself.

It is both terrifying and comforting to think of God as being light. It is terrifying because it means there is nothing that can remain hidden from him. It is comforting because there is nothing that can remain hidden from him.

The comfort we have in knowing that God knows all it is that God is not surprised by what we bring to him.

One of the many challenges we face in faith is learning to trust God. The description of God as light should increase our trust because it means there is nothing we should try to hide from him. We might feel shame in confessing it out loud because it means admitting the truth to ourselves, but that is far less difficult than living under the burden of the truth we’re trying to hide from the world.

The description of God as light should increase our trust because it means there is nothing we should try to hide from him.
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The longer we wait the more difficult it becomes. The more accustomed we become to its presence in our lives. The more we fear its revelation to the world.

And so as we begin the season of Lent I think it’s appropriate for us to take time to consider what things in our lives we should allow God’s light to shine upon. This does not mean some form of public confession needs to be made. Although that is not necessarily excluded. But it does mean making a clear and unequivocal confession to God, seeking his forgiveness with a sincere heart.

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Lent 2020 | Day 33: “Darkness”

The power of darkness is an empty threat.

The Christian faith points us to and highlights the fact that we serve a God who is light. That means, if we are willing to accept it, that there is nothing this world can throw at us that either surprises God or diminishes his glory.

In spite of all the uncertainty the current state of affairs wants to heap on us, God is calling us to remember who he is. He has not changed. There is nothing that can happen in this world that can undo what God has done; that can unravel what God has planned and executed. God is unwavering and God is unimpressed with the darkness.

The reason the darkness feels so overwhelming is that we have a tendency to focus on what reminds us of those things that are not God. We know grace is not what we deserve. We know that God’s mercy feels wasted on us. We know this. Why? Because we know ourselves. The darkness is the warm blanket of accusation reminding us how bad we are.

The problem is, the real tragedy is that we have grown so used to the darkness, we don’t trust the light. We feel that if we approach it, too much will be exposed. Too much discovered. Too much revealed. And then, at our most vulnerable we will wonder how anyone, especially God, could accept us.

It is into this conundrum that God sends his son. Right smack dab into the middle of this mess we call the human experience, Jesus steps in and manifests how light dispels the darkness. How a God who is light and love can embrace what should be rejected.

The Gospel–the story to which Easter is the final climactic peak–is proof positive that light can truly vanquish darkness. That darkness a fear-inducing reality is a toothless, venomless foe.

1 John 1:5 | God is light

⁵ This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all.

After his introduction, John makes a declaration regarding the message that he now proclaims. In these first five verses, John makes reference to the message that he and the other disciples are preaching eleven distinct times. Continue reading “1 John 1:5 | God is light”

The Penetrating Sight of God

In 1 John 1:5-10 we are confronted with a rather alarming reality. John tells his readers that if they claim to be in the light there should be a distinct difference in them from the world. There are three characteristics in a person who declares a relationship with God.

First, if we have a genuine relationship with God we will walk in the light. The metaphor of light and dark in John’s writings point to a new knowledge about who God truly is. The implication is that when the darkness of our lives encounters the light of God’s being we are, possibly for the first time, confronted with what is truly wrong with us. And as a result we live according to the truth we have been exposed to.

Second, if we have a genuine relationship with God we will not live in self-deception. John articulates this by saying, “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves.” When the light of God’s character and God’s words is shown on us we have two choices. We can deny what we see or we can accept what has been revealed. If we choose the former we begin living in denial and self-deception. If we choose this path, John makes it clear that we not only have made ourselves a victim of a lie, we cannot claim to have any truth within us.

Third, if we have a genuine relationship with we accept that our brokenness can only be healed by the Gospel. In verse 10 John takes the idea of sin one step further. Before, John was saying that if we deny sin at all we are deluding ourselves but, if we take it a step forward and assert that we have not sinned, in other words, if we say that there is no brokenness in us, we are making the testimony of God regarding our sinful natures out to be a farce. Our sin, our brokenness, is the clearest evidence that God’s efforts for redemption are essential for us to experience any healing whatsoever.

As my pastor was preaching through this passage this past Sunday he said something that, on the surface, sounds obvious. However, when we consider it for fully it sparked a deeper love for God and a greater appreciation for God’s grace. This is what he said.

“God is light. Therefore, God hides nothing and nothing is hidden from God.”

Until we acknowledge and accept the range and scope of God’s ability to see all things, the longer it will take for us to know that God is not surprised by our sin. There is nothing past, present, or future that God does not already know about you and me. There is nothing that escapes God’s perception or awareness.

God not only knows all things, he has seen all things. This means that if God, with this knowledge, still decided to send Jesus to earth on a mission of salvation, there is no reason for us to run from God when he calls. We may be ashamed of our sin. We may regret the choices we have made. We may find it hard to escape the weight of the consequences of what we have said and done. But none of these things are severe enough to separate us from the love of God.

God has seen it and he still loves us. The truth that John points to–that God is light–is both terrible and terrific. I cannot hide from God. And, he does not want me to hide from him. Nothing is beyond the penetrating sight of God.

King David said it best when he said,

⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? ⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. ⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, ¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. ¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,” ¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you. (Psalm 139:7-12 NIV)

Stop running from God. There is no place to escape from him. Run to him and experience the fullness of joy he has promised to all who seek him. Begin today to see that he desires to be found.